


Just Close Your Eyes, Trust Me

by SuperBlondie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Asshole!Yifan, Attempted Assault, Hinted/Reference Non-Con/Dub-Con, Idiots in Love, Innocent!Junmyeon, M/M, Mafia Boss Yifan, Mafia EXO, Slow Burn, Some Fluff, Some dark moments, The threat is presented in the beginning, at first, but nothing actually ever happens, just be aware that it is referenced multiple times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-02-29 14:35:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 35,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18780241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperBlondie/pseuds/SuperBlondie
Summary: Junmyeon is much too pretty for prison.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Prompt #7)
> 
> So this prompt threw me through a loop. It was a frustrating beast but I'm happy with how it turned out. I really hope you all enjoy it as well! Title is from Tempo by EXO (after my beta and I tried to find a good title for like an hour XD) 
> 
> Please read the tags and make sure you're alright with everything mentioned!
> 
> As always, a big thank you to [ Aarushi](https://twitter.com/Aarushi_c18) for being the best beta in the world! you really cheered me on through this fic, not sure it would've gotten done without you

The door to the cell slams shut and Junmyeon startles. He turns on his heel and watches as the guards who had walked him in disappear back down the hallway, leaving him completely alone. All the other cells in A block are empty. The guards said it’s the norm for new arrivals, gives them some time to adjust without the scrutiny of the other prisoners. It’s lonely, but it’s safer than just throwing him in. One of the guards had taken a look at him and frowned; she patted him on the shoulder and said he should spend as much time out in the yard, in public spaces where guards can see him, as possible.

_You’re too pretty_. And pretty doesn’t last long in prison.

Junmyeon swallows and tries to force down the uneasiness in his stomach. He’ll follow the guard’s advice, try to stay on his cellmate’s good side, and be careful. He’ll shower when no one else does. He’ll avoid the other prisoners and maybe he’ll last the two years of his sentence.

There’s a note on the bottom bunk. Junmyeon picks it up without unfolding it and stretches up on his tiptoes to see what his cellmate’s bunk looks like. The top bunk is carefully made, blankets tucked in like Junmyeon’s father always demanded. It’s military tight, not neat like the guards had explained was expected of him, but rigid and perfect. There are pictures taped to the wall, some postcards and some paintings, and a stuffed animal tucked in next to the pillow. Junmyeon didn’t think stuffed animals were allowed in prison. He wonders if his cellmate is a special case or just really good at hiding his indiscretions.

Junmyeon drops back down. There’s something strange about the top bunk. It’s so well made but there’s life in the pictures on the wall and a kind of sweetness in the stuffed animal tucked in so lovingly under the the blanket. It makes him wonder who is going to be walking into the cell in less than an hour.

What kind of person leaves a note for their new cellmate. What kind of person they must be for the guards to _leave_ the note there. The note unfolds to show neat, clean handwriting.

_The top bunk is mine. Don’t touch it._

Junmyeon turns the note over and over but there’s nothing else. That’s it. His cellmate needed to leave a note to tell him something he can easily understand on his own. One of the other prisoners that rode in on the bus with him was a repeat offender, pretty familiar with the workings of the prison, and laughed when he heard Junmyeon’s cell number. Junmyeon’s cellmate apparently goes through cellmates pretty fast. The cellmate comes in and then a week or two later they leave.

Nothing ever happens in the cell, nothing ever happens when Xiumin is present, but every cellmate except for the very first has ended up in a body bag. Junmyeon wonders if it’s because they touched the top bunk. A shiver runs down his spine and he makes the decision then and there to not even _look_ at the top bunk.

Making the bottom bunk is a disaster. Junmyeon only ever made his bed before when he was changing the sheets. He just didn’t see the point in doing it every morning since he’d just be messing it up again at night. It’s coming back to bite him the ass now, because he’s a grown adult fighting with a blanket. “Just fucking go! Come on!”

The corner of the fitted sheet he’d been trying to tuck in snaps back, taking every other corner with it and leaving Junmyeon sitting in a sad sheet puddle in the middle of the bed. He buries his face in his hands with a groan and blinks back frustrated tears.

He’s not even supposed to _be_ here. He wasn’t the one who’d hacked into the FBI, it was another Kim, J. But the Kim, J. who’d actually done it had covered their tracks and made a fake trail leading back to Junmyeon. Junmyeon liked to hack, liked to play around with computer codes, but he _never_ wanted to take it that far. The police hadn’t seen it that way, neither had the FBI or the jury. The judge was kind though, he gave Junmyeon the minimum sentence on account of the fact that it was his first offense and that he _swore_ he didn’t even know _how_ to get past the FBI firewalls.

So, two years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, a crime he _couldn’t_ have committed. Two years in prison if his cellmate doesn’t off him, at least.

Junmyeon lets out a shuddering breath and curls into a ball, burying his face in his knees. He’s held it together since the guilty verdict. He’s been numb, been angry, but he held it together. But right now he has about an hour in his empty cell and it’s all too real.

Everything is right there in his face and it’s just too much; he doesn’t want to hold it together anymore. Junmyeon whimpers and cries into his shitty blue jumpsuit.

He cries for a long time. All the emotions he’d stamped down since the jury came back and sentenced him to jail for something he _didn’t fucking do_ come roaring back up and pour out of him in tears and sobs.

He startles when the cell door creaks open and looks up, furiously wiping at his face. No one can see his tears. Crying isn’t allowed in prison, not when he’s already so fucking unprepared to deal with everything. He’s in good shape, but he’s small and not a fighter. And pretty, he knows he’s too pretty. He’s already a target, he doesn’t need anyone _seeing_ his weaknesses.

His cellmate walks in and the door closes behind him. He isn’t tall, probably Junmyeon’s height, but Junmyeon can see strength in his shoulders even through the jumpsuit. His cellmate tilts his head to the side and frowns, little mouth turning down and brows furrowing. Junmyeon wipes at his eyes again and tries to swallow down a hiccup. He must look so pathetic, crying on the bottom bunk of their prison cell, fitted sheet pooled underneath him. Red eyes and runny nose and little, hiccupping cries – he must look so fucking weak.

“So you’re my new cellmate.”

Junmyeon nods. He sniffles and wipes at his nose. “I, uh, yeah. Junmyeon.” He’s proud of how his voice manages to stay steady.

“Junmyeon,” Xiumin rolls the syllables around in his mouth, “Nice name.”

They stare at each other for a few moments. Junmyeon expects Xiumin to say something about the way he’s curled up in the middle of his bunk, sobbing into his knees like a child. He’s new meat, someone to pick on, pick apart. Junmyeon is still fighting back tears. His bottom lip quivers helplessly and he can’t get his breathing to even out. But Xiumin just keeps staring.

His eyes are sharp, and they see right through Junmyeon, but they aren’t malicious. They’re simply staring. And when they finally leave Junmyeon alone to dart up to the top bunk, Junmyeon doesn’t feel like he’s been picked apart.

“You didn’t touch my things.” Xiumin’s mouth perks up into a smile.

“They aren’t mine to touch.”

Xiumin smiles wider, lips splitting to show pretty white teeth. “Minseok.”

Junmyeon blinks, “What?”

“My name is Minseok.” It fits him better than Xiumin.

Minutes pass in silence before Junmyeon realizes he’s waiting for Minseok to say something when it’s obvious he’s done talking. Junmyeon huffs, irritation at his own stupidity making his cheeks burn pink. Minseok stares at him for a few seconds more before he shrugs and the moment breaks.

Junmyeon watches as he crosses the cell with light, dancing steps and climbs up the ladder to the top bunk. Junmyeon listens to the rustling as Minseok gets comfortable, rearranging his things and pushing blankets around. Junmyeon doesn’t move. He stays huddled in the middle of his bunk, fitted sheet bunching underneath him, and listens to his cellmate settle in his perfectly made bed. Junmyeon doesn’t know why he’s so fixated on the fucking sheets, but he is.

He pulls at the fitted sheet underneath him. He thinks of Minseok’s perfectly made bunk, of his reputation, of how he doesn’t walk like he’s constantly looking over his shoulder. Minseok is pretty too. He’s Junmyeon’s size, petite compared to the other inmates that rode with Junmyeon on the bus here, and he’s _pretty_. But he’s surviving.

Maybe if Junmyeon can make his bed just as neatly, he’ll survive too. Maybe if he can just make his bed, can complete this simple fucking task, he’ll feel like he has a grasp on his fucking life.

Junmyeon huffs and tries to stretch the fitted sheet out to the closest corners of the bed. He tucks them in and feels an absurd burst of pride in his chest. He is _functioning_. Not well, but he is making his bed and that’s as close to functioning he’s gotten since the police showed up at his door with a warrant for a crime he never committed. Junmyeon rides the ripple of confidence as he turns around and grabs the rest of fitted sheet.

“Not that hard,” he whispers. “You just gotta tuck the sheet in – _fuck!_ ” The corners he’d just tucked in spring back just as he goes to tuck the new ones in and Junmyeon’s left in a puddle of fitted sheet again. Minseok coughs and it sounds a lot like a laugh. Junmyeon takes a deep breath. He _refuses_ to cry about a fitted sheet. It’s a fucking _sheet_.

So he tries again. It happens again. He tries again. He gets three corners tucked this time, but the last one won’t stretch far enough. Junmyeon pushes and pulls to make it fit. It goes. After a lot of pulling and pushing and swearing under his breath, it goes, but just as he’s tucking it all the way in, the rest of the fitted sheet springs back and settles on Junmyeon’s head. Junmyeon’s cheeks feel like they’re on fire. “No no no! Just – just fit, please!” Junmyeon fights his way out of the sheet and climbs of the bunk, willing back a sense of overwhelming helplessness.

It’s just a _sheet_. But it’s staring back at him from the bunk and Junmyeon thinks he can hear it laughing at him. Then he looks up and sees Minseok staring at him, eyebrows up in undeniable judgement. Junmyeon swallows, embarrassment an uncomfortable weight in his stomach. The cell is quiet and tense. Minseok stares at Junmyeon and Junmyeon stares at a point somewhere near Minseok's shoulder, too scared to look him in the eye.

"Do you not know how to make a bed?"

"I," Junmyeon cuts himself off, shuffling in place. Minseok waves a hand for him to continue. "I _do_. I'm just, uh, struggling right now."

"Struggling to make a bed?" Junmyeon nods. Minseok scoffs and the sound brings more tears to Junmyeon's eyes. He bows his head and glares at the stupid fucking fitted sheet like it's the root of all his problems. Not the fact that he's in a prison cell with a man who's likely killed every other cellmate that's lived with him, just the fitted sheet. If he focuses on the sheet, he can almost block out everything and pretend that his problems really are just that simple.

Fuck, he's so pathetic. He's pathetic and weak and he'll be lucky if he lasts a week in here. If Minseok doesn't kill him before the sun comes up in the morning.

Junmyeon feels the ball of emotion in his chest rise higher and higher, throat closing up. He tries to force a few calming breaths but it's hopeless – he's going to cry _again_ and Minseok will be here to watch it _again_. The least he can do is hide on his bunk and try to save the last little shreds of his dignity. He crawls back onto the bunk and curls up on his side, fitted sheet over him like a blanket.

He's sobbing before he has the thought to cover his mouth. Junmyeon rolls onto his belly and cries into the hard, dirty mattress. It's probably covered in germs; Junmyeon doesn't care. He just wants to cry – he wants to _go home_. He cries harder now than before, mattress muffling his wails as he lets it all go.

Minseok already knows he's weak. Everyone in A block is going to know he's weak by morning. There's no point in hiding it. If things go the way he thinks they will, he'll be crying a lot for the next two years.

Junmyeon doesn't know how long he cries before he feels a hand on his back. He startles and flails, caught in the fitted sheet. It wraps around his legs and arms and holds him still. There's a sigh and then someone carefully disentangling him. Minseok pulls the sheet off Junmyeon's head and there's pity in his eyes.

He doesn't say anything as he untangles the rest of the sheet – it gives Junmyeon a few precious seconds to try and calm himself down again.

"Alright," Minseok gestures for Junmyeon to stand, "I need you to pay attention, so get yourself together and watch." Junmyeon doesn't understand until Minseok shakes the fitted sheet out and lays it on the bed. He slowly explains how Junmyeon had been trying to put it on the wrong, how to tell which corners were meant for the short side and which were for the long side. "If you have it the right way, it'll go easy. If it's not fitting, you're not matching up the corners right, understand?"

"Y-yeah, short side with short side, long side with long side."

Minseok hums. "Other sheet, now. And the blanket. I'm assuming you can put a pillow down on your own." Junmyeon nods and hands over the rest of the stuff he'd been handed by the guards. Minseok makes the rest of the bed quietly, only explaining how to make clean corners with sheet and blanket. How Minseok _expects_ it to be done.

Junmyeon wonders if that's a condition for living with Minseok. "What if I can't do it right yet," he asks, voice quiet and shaking. He doesn't want to die over a sheet.

"Watch me in the mornings until you can do it the right way. Until then, sleep on top of the blankets. I'm not going to keep making it for you."

That's expected. This is already way more kindness than Junmyeon ever expected to receive. It's nothing like what Xiumin had sounded like, but Junmyeon isn't going to question it. He just nods and thanks Minseok quietly. Minseok nods and and climbs back up to his bunk.

Junmyeon stands there for a while just staring at his now perfectly made bunk. It shouldn't make him feel calm, but he can feel himself relaxing as he stares.

The kindness of strangers.

He wipes at the last few tears and looks up to Minseok to offer a small smile. Minseok isn't even looking back, too busy reading a book he must've had tucked under his pillow. It doesn't matter. Minseok gave him this little bit of kindness, and it's almost enough to make things seem not so fucking miserable.

When Junmyeon gets back in bed, he's so, so careful. Every movement is calculated. He tries to balance himself on the metal bed frame so he won't shift any of the blankets. He doesn't want to mess up Minseok's work, not when he can't fix it on his own yet.

The cell stays quiet. Only the sound of the Minseok turning the pages of his book breaking the silence. Junmyeon lies on his side and stares out at the dreary concrete metal of their cell, feeling worn out. He drifts in and out of dreamless sleep. His mind is heavy and numb as the adrenaline and stress of the day drain away and leave him exhausted.

He shocks awake when lights out is called and the cell is plunged into darkness.

Minseok snarls about not being given a warning and tosses in his bunk so hard it shakes the bed frame. Junmyeon just blinks quietly and tries not to disturb him.

Minseok tosses and turns for a long time. "Supposed to get a warning. Was in the middle of a fucking chapter, assholes." Finally he stops and Junmyeon relaxes. The cell is quiet again.

Junmyeon waits for what feels like forever. He strains his ears and tries to listen for when Minseok's breathing evens out. It's hard. Minseok is already so quiet. But he tries. There a few times he thinks Minseok's finally fallen asleep and then the man will shift or grumble. Junmyeon waits though. He lies still and waits until the cell is completely silent. "I'm so scared," his voice so quiet as he hugs his pillow to his chest, "I'm so, so scared of everything. Th-they all keep saying how I'm so pretty and pretty doesn't last long in prison. I don't want any trouble, you know? I just want to survive. And I'm so scared of what people are gonna try to do to me, what they're actually gonna do. I'm so scared."

The words are out and Junmyeon breathes a little easier, chest a little lighter. The fear is still there, creeping up his spine and holding him hostage, but he can breathe at least. Junmyeon lets out a deep, shuddering breath, and feels a little better.

"Shower at seven-fifteen."

Junmyeon startles with a squeak. Minseok chuckles softly from above and Junmyeon can see the outline of him in the darkness, leaning down from his bunk and watching Junmyeon. Junmyeon hadn't even seen him move.

"Shower at seven-fifteen every morning and just be like this, quiet, unobtrusive, just trying to get by without any trouble. Say I told you to go, if anyone asks. You'll be fine." Junmyeon can't tell because of the darkness, but he thinks Minseok is smiling at him.

"Thank you." Junmyeon doesn't think he's ever meant the phrase more in his entire life.

"Now go to sleep, I'm tired." Junmyeon smiles as he watches Minseok push himself back up into his bunk and settle down again.

"Seven-fifteen," Junmyeon whispers to himself. "Seven-fifteen." He replays the time over and over in his head until he finally curls up into a ball, face buried in the pillow, and goes to sleep.

* * *

 

Junmyeon wakes to the loudspeaker announcing that breakfast will be served in an hour. He rolls over and groans, shoving his face into his pillow and trying to block out the noise. It’s gone in a few seconds and he relaxes. Sleep is already creeping back over him. He lets out a soft sigh and starts drifting back into a dream.

There’s a loud creak above him and then a thud on the floor. “Seven-fifteen, Junmyeon.”

Junmyeon startles awake with a gasp. He jerks upright and scrambles back until he hits the wall. It takes a while for the world to come into focus, eyes trying to blink out the haze of sleep. He rubs at his eyes with the sleeve; the material is rough, and he hisses at the scratch of the fabric against his face. When he pulls his sleeve away, Minseok is standing there with a hint of a frown on his lips.

Junmyeon’s breathing slows as he remembers Minseok, his cellmate in prison, because he’s in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, reality slamming into him like a semi-truck with a brick on the gas pedal– like it does every morning. He isn’t sure when it’ll really stick that this is his life now. He wonders how many mornings he’ll wake up and have to cope with everything all over again. Could be tomorrow, could be never, and Junmyeon isn’t sure which one would be worse.

Still, Junmyeon remembers things now. “Seven-fifteen,” he says, clears his throat, “I-is is already seven-fifteen?”

Minseok stretches, rolling out his neck and shoulders and sighing when something pops loud enough for Junmyeon to hear. “It’s seven right now. Get up and watch me make my bed.”

And Junmyeon does. He crawls off his bunk without another word. Minseok starts climbing back up the ladder of the bunk bed when he sees Junmyeon move. Junmyeon shivers when his feet touch the cold cement floor and he watches Minseok fix his sheets, remake a corner that’s not sharp anymore. Junmyeon’s brain is slow in the morning, world moving too fast for him to take in. It was never really a problem before, when he could sit at his kitchen table with a cup of coffee until he could keep with the rest of the world. There’s no time here though, no reprieve. He forces himself to focus on Minseok, forces information past the wall in his brain and hopes something sticks.

When Minseok stops, Junmyeon moves and starts smoothing out his blanket. Minseok was right that sleeping on top of it would stop him from fucking up the rest of the sheets. It doesn’t take him more than a few minutes to push and pull it into order.

Everything else Minseok had showed him is a cluttered mess of slow, stilted memories, fingers clumsy as he tries to tuck the sheets in a little tighter, but Minseok climbs down from his bunk and gives Junmyeon’s a short nod of approval and Junmyeon smiles.

“Seven-fifteen,” Minseok says again as he gathers up a change of clothes and some toiletries. He knocks on the cell door and Junmyeon scrambles after him, tiny bottle of issued shampoo and scratchy jumpsuit tucked under his arm.

Junmyeon expects them to walk to the showers together – Minseok must’ve told him seven-fifteen so that they would go to the showers together as a buddy system. But Minseok walks further into A block and leaves Junmyeon with a guard without a backwards glance. Junmyeon stands there for a few seconds, not sure what to do. Minseok isn’t anything to Junmyeon, hardly more than a stranger, but he’s all Junmyeon has and Junmyeon doesn’t quite know what to do on his own.

“Showers are this way, kid,” the guard – Jongin – says as he looks after Minseok with a small smile and shake of his head. Junmyeon doesn’t understand but he doesn’t care, just nods slowly as Jongin leads him away, in the opposite direction of where Minseok went. Junmyeon follows after the guard with his head down. It’s all he knows how to do.

Jongin leaves him at the entrance to the showers with that unreadable smile from before. Junmyeon walks in, just out of Jongin’s sight, and falters. There’s already a shower running, water splashing against the tile and swirling down the drain. Junmyeon can see it from where he’s standing – can’t see the person _in_ the shower, but can see the water and the bubbles as they’re washed away.

Just one shower running. Junmyeon thought that most people would be trying to shower before breakfast, but the man in the shower has it all to himself. Who did Minseok send Junmyeon to? No one can clear out the bathroom like this unless they’re powerful. Junmyeon doesn’t want to be around power. He wants to stay far away from power and carve out a little space to survive in for the next two years.

But Minseok sent him here with the instruction to be quiet, to keep his head down. Minseok told him to say that he sent him if asked. And Junmyeon doesn’t have any goddamn reason to trust Minseok; this could be how the rest of his roommates met their end. Junmyeon also doesn’t have a choice whether to trust Minseok or not. It’s shower now with one other person or shower later with the rest of A block.

Junmyeon’s got better odds this way, at least.

He steps further into the showers, setting his things down on a bench pressed against a wall safe from the water. Junmyeon ignores the way his hands tremble and fingers fumble as he unbuttons his jumpsuit. He ignores the folded up jumpsuit on the other end of the bench.

Shampoo and soap in hand, Junmyeon steps into the shower itself and keeps his head down and tries very, very hard not to look at the other man. He knows that the other man is staring at him, can watch his feet as he turns around to face Junmyeon. Junmyeon stays quiet and unobtrusive as he walks to another showerhead.

The man doesn’t say anything as Junmyeon turns on the showerhead and gasps at spray of cold water. He doesn’t say anything as Junmyeon shivers and waits for the water to warm up. He doesn’t say _anything_.

Until he does. “What are you doing?” Junmyeon stares at the button that turns the showerhead on and opens his mouth. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.” The low voice echoes off the tile.

Junmyeon squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath. His head bows on its own, shoulders hunching in. Slowly, so slowly, he turns to face the man. The water runs into his eyes and he tries to blink through it, just barely able to see a tall frame and head of dark hair through the blur. “Sh-showering,” he says after a moment, “I’m just showering. Like you. Just… showering?”

He waits but the man doesn’t respond. “I don’t want any trouble,” he starts, voice going high in fear, “I’m just trying to shower.”

“Who are you? And step out of the water, I can’t see your face like this.”

Junmyeon does. There’s no room in the man’s voice for argument and Junmyeon’s not a fighter. The man’s got a few inches on him, has the stance of some of the kids Junmyeon went to school with, the ones that grew up fighting. The shower tile is slippery with water, the shower tile is _hard_. If they fought, he’d go down at hit that tile _hard._ Junmyeon’s not in the position to argue, so he steps out of the water and wipes at his eyes. When he opens them, the first thing he registers is that the man looks even taller now, the second is that the man is handsome. And then he shoves the thoughts away. They won’t do him any good – handsome men can still be dangerous, are usually the _most_ dangerous.

The man’s mouth open, lips forming around the first syllable of a word Junmyeon doesn’t want to hear. He doesn’t want to hear that he’s _pretty_ , not while he’s in the shower with a strange man – a strange man with enough power to have the entire A block bathroom to himself. “I’m Junmyeon. Min-Minseok told me to shower at seven-fifteen.” He just barely stops himself from begging Kris to leave him alone. He’s pretty sure pathetic is just radiating off him at this point, no need to drive the point home.

“Kris,” the man says in return. His eyes are calculating, never straying from Junmyeon’s face and seeing right through him. It’s uncomfortable and Junmyeon thinks about stepping back into the water and risking Kris’ anger. But then Kris gives a small smile and steps back under the spray of his showerhead.

“Shower fast,” Kris gestures to the soap and shampoo bottles in Junmyeon’s hands, “I don’t like long showers and you’re not going to want to stay in here after I leave.”

Junmyeon nods vigorously, wet hair flopping back into his eyes as he scrambles back into the water, flipping open the shampoo bottle with shaking hands. He washes as fast as he can, heart thumping in his chest. He isn’t sure how to interpret all of this. Kris’ eyes lit up at Minseok’s name, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t give any clue if Minseok was truly being kind or trying to send Junmyeon to his death. He’s not dead yet though, and Kris doesn’t _seem_ angry. Kris seems like he doesn’t give a fuck that Junmyeon is here as long as he’s quiet – Junmyeon will develop selective mutism if it means being able to stay alive and shower in safety.

Kris’ shower shuts off just as Junmyeon is rinsing off the last of the soap. Junmyeon shakes off any remaining soapsuds and flails for the shower handle. Kris is crouched next to the bench with their jumpsuits when Junmyeon turns around.

His footsteps are loud as he pads across the tile floor. They make little splashing sounds that cut through the silence. Kris doesn’t even look up from his own jumpsuit and towel, too busy drying himself off to care about what Junmyeon is doing. Junmyeon’s never been happier to be treated like he doesn’t exist.

Junmyeon follows Kris out. They’re both heading to the cafeteria, but Junmyeon stays a few steps behind and keeps his eyes on the floor. Kris doesn’t seem to mind. It’s strange, because Junmyeon thought that having a strange person following him around would make someone like Kris, someone powerful enough to clear out a bathroom, someone who has to have enemies, uncomfortable. But Kris just walks to the cafeteria and doesn’t look back once.

It makes Junmyeon feel like a lost little puppy, following after the first person to show him kindness. That’s how some of the other prisoners stare at him when he enters the cafeteria too. One group of them look from Kris to him and back again with a malicious light in their eyes and a smirk on their lips.

But Kris separates from him once they’re in the cafeteria. Junmyeon scurries to the line for food and waits with his head down, keeping his shoulders hunched in to take up as little space as possible. One of the kitchen assistants watches him curiously as he hands Junmyeon a tray of food. Junmyeon frowns but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to ask, doesn’t want to know why so many people keep fucking _looking_ at him.

The last thing he wants is for people to look at him. He just wants to blend in, be ordinary and boring and the last person the other prisoners take interest in.

Junmyeon settles himself at an empty table off to the side. He pretends he doesn’t feel the eyes on him and eats the lackluster mush passed as breakfast food. It’s not as bad as he’d thought it would be. Not good, but not awful. He’ll be sick of it after two years, but at least it doesn’t taste like it’ll kill him.

After a little while he looks up and takes in the rest of the cafeteria. It’s not as full as Junmyeon thought it would be, but there’s a steady trickle of inmates coming in with wet hair. People tend to shower before they eat here, apparently. It’s nice in a way, means that as long as Junmyeon keeps showering with Kris he’ll be able to eat breakfast in a quiet cafeteria.

Kris is sitting on the other side of the cafeteria, surrounded by other men. Minseok’s there, leaning into the side of another inmate and stealing little pieces of fruit off everyone else’s tray. He meets Junmyeon’s eyes across the room and raises an eyebrow.

A few seconds pass. Kris is Minseok’s friend, Minseok’s _powerful_ friend, and he told Junmyeon to shower at seven-fifteen because he knew that that’s when Kris showers, that no one else showers when Kris showers. He knew Junmyeon would be safe as long as he didn’t bother Kris. He knew that Kris would let Junmyeon stay if Kris knew Minseok sent him. There’s still a low-level of terror running through Junmyeon’s body, he still feels like he’s going to jump out of his skin at the slightest noise, if someone makes a sudden move, but Minseok sent Junmyeon somewhere safe. Junmyeon gives Minseok half a smile and turns back to his food.

* * *

 

The loudspeaker goes off at precisely seven in the morning, like it has every other morning since Junmyeon got here. He rolls over and groans. He rubs at his eyes, blinking groggily at the underside of Minseok’s mattress. It’s seven in the morning, which means that in a few seconds Minseok will start shifting around and Junmyeon will have to crawl out of bed and watch him make the top bunk. Just as he has every other morning.

Junmyeon can recite his entire day by heart – wake up at seven, watch Minseok make the top bunk, shower at seven-fifteen, eat breakfast, start shift at nine and work until three with thirty minutes for lunch, rec time from three to five-thirty, thirty minutes for dinner, another hour or two for rec depending on how everyone behaved during the day, then back to the cell at seven or eight, and lights out at ten. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. It’s clockwork. It’s _reliable_.

It helps Junmyeon adjust. There’s no ambiguity about where he should be or what he should be doing. It’s predictable; he has something to cling to as he works through the emotions that just won’t go away.

Junmyeon clings to Minseok too. Only in their cell, and never physically, but Minseok always walks into their cell at night and takes one look at him before sighing and asking about his day. He said once that Junmyeon reminded him of a bunny, wide-eyed and always ready to run – a prey animal that needed to be looked after. Junmyeon didn’t know how to respond, so he said nothing at all staring at his cellmate with wide eyes, and that only made Minseok shake his head and call him cottontail. _Cottontail_.

Minseok could have at least called him Thumper if he was going to call him a fucking bunny rabbit.

“Cottontail,” Minseok groans, “you awake? They’re going to be doing a more thorough bunk check today so I’m gonna need you to remake your bed.”

Junmyeon grimaces. He stays silent and hopes that maybe Minseok thinks he’s still asleep. He’s spent a week watching Minseok remake the top bunk, but all Junmyeon has really figured out is how to straighten out the top blanket. Minseok has mentioned that he always receives an excellent rating on his bunk, _excellent_. Junmyeon doesn’t think his bunk will even manage an acceptable rating if he’s the one making it.

And then Minseok’s head appears as he hangs over the side of the bed, eyes narrowed. Junmyeon squeaks in surprise and flinches away. “Are you listening to me?”

“Y-yeah, I heard you.” Minseok’s eyes narrow further, lips thinning into an unhappy line. Junmyeon can almost hear his thoughts – _if you heard me, why didn’t answer me?_ Junmyeon swallows and moves his gaze to the underside of the top bunk. “Was just thinking.”

“About?”

Junmyeon worries at the fabric over his stomach, rough material of the jumpsuit scratching against his skin. It’s not pleasant, but it’s better than the awful discomfort of being pinned in place by Minseok’s stare. He has to answer. Minseok is staring right at him, knows Junmyeon heard him. Junmyeon’s already ignored him once; he’s not sure what will happen if he does it a second time. “About whether or not I can make the bunk perfectly yet,” Junmyeon replies in a soft, small voice.

Minseok hums and Junmyeon doesn’t know what it’s supposed to mean. He chances a glance over and sees Minseok’s lips twisted and he doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean either. Junmyeon opens his mouth to apologize for not paying better attention, and then Minseok disappears. Junmyeon _knows_ he should’ve watched more carefully, tried harder to shake off the thousand thoughts he has every goddamn day so he could focus and really remember what Minseok was doing to pull the sheets so tight. But he didn’t and now the shaky, tentative peace they had is fucked.

_Junmyeon_ is fucked.

The bunk bed rattles as Minseok climbs down the ladder and Junmyeon curls up into a ball. “I’m sorry,” the words tumble out before he can stop them, voice shaking. “I-I’m really _really_ sorry, Minseok.”

Minseok doesn’t say anything, just gestures for him to get up. Probably so he can take whatever’s about to happen to him like a man. Junmyeon wonders if he’ll somehow earn some of Minseok’s respect back if he stands up and holds his ground – if Minseok even respected him in the first place. Junmyeon doesn’t feel like he deserves much respect when he rolls out of bed and winces at the cold concrete floor under his feet.

“Try to make it now while I’m here and can fix what you fuck up. And don’t apologize; I don’t see anything wrong with saying sorry, but most of the other inmates take apologies as weakness,” Minseok says as he leans against the ladder with his arms crossed. He nods to the bunk again when Junmyeon hesitates. Junmyeon scrambles to strip the sheets. When he turns around with the ball of sheets in his arms, Minseok takes it with a little smirk and hands back the fitted sheet.

Junmyeon realizes he knows absolutely nothing about Minseok. All his past cellmates were carried out of the prison in a body bag a few weeks after arriving. He’s somehow connected to one of the most powerful inmates in A block. But Minseok puts up with Junmyeon, puts up with him not knowing how to make a fucking bed. He’s holding a ball of sheets and only clicks his tongue when Junmyeon makes a mistake. Minseok sent him to shower with one of the most powerful inmates in A block because he knew Junmyeon would be safe. Junmyeon doesn’t understand his cellmate, not even a little. Junmyeon thinks that might be okay.

Minseok gives the bottom bunk a once over when Junmyeon finishes. “Not bad, actually.” Then he turns on his heel and grabs Junmyeon’s soap and shampoo off the shelves next to the bunk and throws them. “Kris’ll be pissed if you’re late.”

Junmyeon swears and nearly drops his things in his haste to catch them. He forgot about showering. Jongin is already waiting outside the cell door when Junmyeon knocks, eyebrows rising when Junmyeon clutches his things to his chest and walks as quickly as he can to the showers.

He thinks he hears Minseok’s laughter echoing off the walls of their cell behind him, and the tips of his ears burn in embarrassment, but he just puts his head down and scurries.

Kris doesn’t even look up when Junmyeon stumbles into the showers and frantically strips down. When Junmyeon starts up his shower, Kris is just turning his off. “Make it quick. You have until I finish drying off.” Junmyeon makes a soft noise of fear and showers faster than he thinks he ever has in his entire life. Kris takes longer to dry himself than Junmyeon remembers; he’s just finishing buttoning up his jumpsuit when Junmyeon shuts off his own shower. Junmyeon’s sense of time could also just be shit. He was in a rush, time was flying by and dragging along at once.

The walk to the cafeteria is the same as always. Junmyeon walking a good distance behind Kris. Kris walks a little slower today than usual, but Junmyeon can’t tell if it’s because leftover adrenaline is making Junmyeon walk faster or if Kris is just wanting to take his time today.

Junmyeon sits at an empty table across the cafeteria. He eats his food by himself and watches the rest of the inmates who shower at night or get up early to work in the kitchens mill around and eat their own breakfast. Mostly, he watches Kris and Minseok’s table, watches them talk and laugh and tries to figure out why they’re bothering to help him.

He thinks it may become one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

Junmyeon’s shift in the library starts at eight-thirty. The library is tucked away in a strange corner of the prison that Junmyeon can’t manage to find it on his own. So he finishes his breakfast and then waits for Chanyeol to finish his own food and wave him over so they can walk to the library together.

Chanyeol is kind, always wearing a smile and making conversation about the weather or what book he’s reading. He gave Junmyeon front desk duty. Chanyeol says he likes putting away books instead of desk duty because he likes being able to stretch his legs and curl up and read in the armchair he has stashed away in an undiscovered corner of the library. The cameras and the guards in the library are also focused on the front desk, meaning no one bothers the person working there.

Chanyeol is kind. He is also one of the men who sits at Kris and Minseok’s table during meals. Junmyeon doesn’t know how he feels about that.

Shift goes the same way it has since he started. He sits at the front desk and watches the inmates reading at the tables at the front of the library. It's mostly the inmates who work in the kitchen or the ones who work in laundry because they check out books to read while they wait for the dryers to finish. Junmyeon doesn't do much beside stamp the books other inmates want to check out with a due date and write down the inmate's number in case they don't return it. The returned books go on a cart for Chanyeol to sort and reshelf.

Junmyeon uses all his extra time not checking out books to read. He doesn't remember ever reading as much as he has since he went to prison. There's nothing else for him to, but there's also nothing else he has to. As long as he checks out books and keeps half an eye on the tables, he can read as much as he'd like. He's already finished two novels and is almost done with a third.

It's nothing compared to the stack of books he's seen Chanyeol carry off to read. Doesn't compare to the stack of books Chanyeol set up for him when he found out Junmyeon liked to read either.

"Found another you'd like," Chanyeol says as he sets another novel on top of the pile next to the front desk. "I didn't think we had _Lord of the Rings,_ but I found the first one stuck between two sports encyclopedias. Can probably find the other ones if I go exploring."

"Thank you." Chanyeol nods and takes another armful of books off the return cart before disappearing into the maze of bookshelves. Junmyeon watches him go, not sure how to feel about it all. The unprompted friendliness, the offers to go out of his way to find books he thinks Junmyeon will like.

Junmyeon chews on his bottom lip for a moment before sighing and shoving the thoughts away.

Lunch is a thirty minute break at noon. Junmyeon and Chanyeol lock up the library and walk to the cafeteria together. Junmyeon stares at the floor; he doesn't even bother to look up as the grey concrete of the hallway turns into the black and white tile of the cafeteria, just keeps his head down and shuffles to the line for food.

Chanyeol is nice, but not nice enough to invite Junmyeon to sit with him at lunch. Junmyeon remembers learning that the hard way his first full day in jail, following after Chanyeol to the lunch line. Junmyeon remembers hoping that Chanyeol would offer him a seat, hoping that maybe even Minseok would wave him over.

And then Chanyeol had walked over to Kris and Minseok's table and sat down without a word, taking up the last spot at the table. Junmyeon had stood there for a while, staring at the crowded room and trying to act like he wasn't stupid enough to think that anyone _wanted_ him.

He ate alone at a table shoved into a tiny, cramped corner of the cafeteria. He eats alone there now.

Junmyeon stirs the mush that's supposed to be applesauce around and around with his shitty spoon. His stomach rolls in unhappiness, food suddenly unappetizing. It's his fault for thinking about it. He's so fucking pathetic.

Almost every bite of food on his tray gets thrown in the garbage. The few bites he'd managed to choke down feel like lead in his stomach and he sighs.

Junmyeon doesn't wait for Chanyeol like he usually does, he just waves over a guard and asks if they'll escort him back to the library. The path takes him past Kris and Minseok's table and it feels like walking past the popular kids back in high school, cheeks heating up and nervous embarrassment making him want to throw up the little food he has in his stomach. But he manages to walk past the table without tripping or bursting into tears, so he counts it as a win and follows the guard back to the library.

When shift ends, another pair of inmates come to watch over the library until lights out and Junmyeon is free to go. Junmyeon heads out to the prison yard while Chanyeol disappears down the hall that holds all the rec rooms.

The prison yard is full as usual. There are inmates _everywhere_ and sometimes Junmyeon wonders if it’d be smarter to go spend his free time in one of the rec rooms. He picks at a blade of grass and pulls his knees to his chest to rest his head. Probably not, the prison yard is full but it’s large, large enough to hold everyone. The rec rooms might have less people but they’re a hell of a lot smaller and Junmyeon likes having space to himself.

No one bothers him outside. He has a nice patch of grass to himself and can spend his few hours of rec staring up at the clouds. The guards like the grass too. Most of them cluster on the grass a few yards away from him.

No one wants to go near the guards, so no one wants to go near Junmyeon. He’s perfectly safe.

And completely alone.

Junmyeon scans the yard again and feels his entire body tense. They’re watching him again. They’re _always_ watching him, but this time they’re openly staring at him from their place on the bleachers.

Four or five men, depending on the time, all with the same distinctive tattoo of a rattlesnake on their forearms. They’re the only inmates Junmyeon’s seen roll up the sleeves of their jumpsuits. The first day of fall was last Monday and the chill of autumn has already started to set in, but the men roll their sleeves up even higher. Junmyeon wonders if they’re trying to show some kind of dominance by being cold. He wonders if they’re trying to establish dominance over _him._

He noticed them a few days ago. He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling he was being watched one morning as he followed Kris to the cafeteria. The feeling stayed all through breakfast, all through shift and lunch too. He told himself he was being paranoid. He _knows_ he’s paranoid, terrified of what can happen to him in prison, but it hadn’t felt like paranoia then. Still, he tried to shove the unease as far down as it would go and shook off the tension on the walk back to the library.

Then he caught them staring. All five of them were at a table at the front of the library. They all had books, classics Junmyeon hadn’t seen since high school. They didn’t seem like the type of people to read Greek tragedies. And they weren’t. Junmyeon looked up from his book once and saw all five of them looking right at him. All the men looked back at their books then, but Junmyeon saw that the one with _The Odyssey_ was holding the book upside down and the one with _Antigone_ didn’t have the book open.

He watched them out of the corner of his eye after that – they stared at him for the next half hour until he looked up from his book pretended to scan the library for any issues.

Now he sees them everywhere. They watch him at every meal, spend every minute they’re not doing laundry during shift sitting in the library and just _watching_ him. They follow him out to the yard, obviously, but Junmyeon is careful to stay close to the guards. They’ll follow him to dinner and watch him then too.

They leave him alone after dinner, but Junmyeon thinks that’s only because all the inmates have to stay in the rec rooms or go back to their cells early and he hides in a corner of the rec room where Minseok and the man Junmyeon’s seen Minseok sneak a few kisses to like to be.

Junmyeon hasn’t told Minseok about them yet. He isn’t sure if he should. It’s clear that Junmyeon’s not supposed to interact with him outside of their cell and while Minseok was kind enough to give Junmyeon a way to shower in peace, it doesn’t mean he’ll want to deal with all of Junmyeon’s problems. Junmyeon thinks about the way he can always feel one of the men’s eyes on him as he and Minseok walk back to their cell. He thinks about how they’ve been getting bolder, not bothering to look away when Junmyeon catches them staring – they used to eat across the cafeteria and now they’re only two tables away. They’re getting _so_ much bolder, closing in like a pack of coyotes on a rabbit.

“You good?” Junmyeon jumps, startled out of his thoughts. Minseok is staring at him from the top bunk with a frown. His eyebrows pull together when Junmyeon fakes half a smile and shrugs. “You sure about that? You’ve been standing in the middle of cell for ten minutes.”

“Y-yeah, just got lost in thought. I’m fine.” Junmyeon isn’t fine, but he doesn’t think Minseok really cares one way or the other as long he isn’t being bothered.

Junmyeon crawls into bed. He doesn’t bother slipping under the blanket; just because he made his bed right this morning doesn’t mean he’ll be able to do it again. It takes him a long fucking time to make his bunk too, and he _really_ can’t risk losing Kris’ protection in the mornings. So Junmyeon shivers at the chilly air, stares up at the underside of Minseok’s mattress, and tries not to think about what will happen if the pack of coyotes finally lunge.

* * *

 

Junmyeon is rinsing the shampoo out of his hair when the feeling of being watched returns. The feeling has been a constant one for the past few weeks, but never in the shower. He freezes in place, water cascading over his face and blurring the world around him. He still looks out of the corner of his eye toward the benches and entrance of the showers. He looks for a shadow or figure, maybe some sort of movement.

He sees nothing. There’s no one watching him from the entrance to the showers. He still feels like he’s being watched. But no one is watching him from the entrance and that means they have to be _in_ the showers, _behind him._

No one else has tried to shower at this time, not once. From what Junmyeon can tell, he’s the only other inmate in all of A block that has ever showered with Kris, the only who one’s ever even _tried_. Kris doesn’t seem like he’d take well to others encroaching either; the men stalking after Junmyeon wouldn’t risk Kris’ ire just to come after him. Junmyeon likes to think that they wouldn’t, at least. He can’t really be sure though, they’ve gotten almost unnervingly bold the past few days. One came up to the front desk in the library and wouldn’t leave, asking him increasingly uncomfortable questions about the various romance novels on the cart of returned books – _those yours? bet you just like to read the sex scenes, don’t you?  like to imagine you’re the woman getting railed by the jacked-up hunk on the cover?_

Junmyeon can still see the man leaning farther and farther over the desk, his nasty smile and the starved, wild, _feral_ look in his eyes. Junmyeon had backed up as far as he could and the man had just kept closing in. He doesn’t know what would’ve happened if Chanyeol hadn’t come up to grab a new stack of books to put away.

He doesn’t know what will happen now. Kris hasn’t said or done anything to make him think someone else is in here. He didn’t hear any footsteps, didn’t see any movement. He just feels eyes on him, heavy and unwavering. His heart thuds in his chest; it won’t slow down, only speeds up as the seconds tick by and the feeling of being watched doesn’t go away. He leans forward to put his face out of the spray and tries to take a few deep breaths.

Fear runs like ice through his veins and down his spine, rakes across his stomach and makes him swallow down bile. He tries not to think about what’s scaring him. He hopes that if he doesn’t let himself imagine what might happen that eventually the fear will pass. But it doesn’t.

When he can’t take it anymore, he spins around. The showers are empty. None of the men who’ve been following him around are there. It’s just Kris. Kris, who is openly staring at him from his own shower.

Junmyeon feels his jaw drop open in surprise. One of Kris’ eyebrows twitch as they lock eyes, but he doesn’t look away. Junmyeon doesn’t know what to say, what to do. He hadn’t had a plan for what to do with one of the other men had been staring at him, but he feels even more clueless now that it’s Kris watching him with thinly-veiled interest.

A little, choked-off noise works its way out of Junmyeon’s throat when Kris just keeps fucking _staring_. His gaze stays mostly on Junmyeon’s face, never overtly dropping down to his dick. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t staring at Junmyeon’s ass when his back was turned though. What would Junmyeon even do if he caught Kris staring at his ass? He showers with Kris to keep other inmates away; Kris getting to look his fill could be considered payment.

Junmyeon doesn’t look away or turn back around. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t finish his shower and let Kris do as he pleases, but something just won’t let him. He steps back under the spray so he’s a bit more hidden, but he keeps his eyes on the wall somewhere to the left of Kris’ head and refuses to back down.

After a few moments, Kris smirks, “Hurry up. I’m almost done.”

He turns around and the moment breaks, but Junmyeon is left standing still, mouth hanging open as he stares at Kris’ back. Kris goes back to showering as if nothing happened. Junmyeon blinks and faces the shower head again. He moves on instinct, rinsing the rest of the shampoo out of his hair. He doesn’t know what to think, what Kris could have possibly been thinking; all he knows is that he has to finish showering before Kris does. There are other men who would like to look at him too, but they won’t keep their distance.

The rest of their time in the bathroom passes in silence. Kris doesn’t even glance in his direction and Junmyeon slowly feels himself relax.

Kris walks slower than usual on the way to the cafeteria. It seems that way to Junmyeon, at least. Kris has always walked more a good ways ahead of him and never seemed to pay attention to whether Junmyeon followed after him or not. Today, Junmyeon is right at Kris’ side. He hadn’t meant to. Junmyeon had walked at his normal pace, eyes on the ground, and looked up to see that he was about to run into Kris’ back. He slows his own speed so that he stays a few steps behind him.

The feeling of being watched returns. Junmyeon skin scrawls, almost nauseatingly uncomfortable compared to how he felt in the shower. He wonders if it’s because he knows that the eyes following him now are filled with the promise of danger.

Coyotes circling in ever closer.

Kris pauses at the entrance to the cafeteria. Junmyeon nearly runs into him in his haste to get away from the eyes staring after him and breathes out an apology as he hurries to the line for food. He thinks he sees a frown on Kris’s face, but he doesn’t know him well enough to tell. He doesn’t particularly care; disgust makes his stomach roll as the feeling of being watched lingers – he doesn’t care about anything but making that feeling disappear.

He sits by himself, as always. He waits for the men that have been following him to sit at nearest table. The stares are easier to cope with when he _knows_ where the men are. They can’t sneak up on him if he can see them. He can keep the distance between them if he can see them trying to close in.

The rabbit never had a chance.

He hears their trays hitting the table before he sees them, feels the bench adjust to the added weight before he can even register that he’s been surrounded. All five of them sit down at the table, three across and one on either side of him. Junmyeon’s heart _races_ ; his chest tightens up and the world grays at the edges.

“Thought you looked a little lonely,” the one on his right says. It’s the same one from the library. Junmyeon recognizes the rancid smell of his breath. It makes his eyes burn and his throat close up – he tells himself that because he can’t handle the knowledge that he’s on the verge of tears. He stares down at his food, forces himself to remember how to breathe.

He wants to scream. Maybe call for Minseok to help him just this one last time. He can’t find his voice.

The men are happy to fill the silence. “Mhm, looked so lonely always sitting by yourself. Why is someone as pretty as you all alone?”

“He _is_ pretty, probably one of the prettiest here.”

“Nicest body too.”

One of them whistles under their breath, “You can fucking say that again. Not even these shitty suits can hide a body like that.”

A hand reaches to grab his own where they lay frozen on the table in front of him. He yanks his hands back to himself. The men chuckle and Junmyeon tries as hard as he can to hold back tears. Fear wraps around his ribs like a vise and squeezes until he thinks his chest is going to collapse. He just wants to be left alone. Not that the men care.

“What? Got nothing to say after we gave you all those nice compliments?” Junmyeon stays silent and focuses on not falling to pieces. “Told you, guys, he doesn’t know how to be respectful.”

“But we can teach him.”

Something about the unabashed delight and excitement – _anticipation_ – in the man’s voice gives him the push he needed to move. All he can think about is how badly he doesn’t want to find out exactly how they plan on teaching him ‘respect’. He stands and grabs his tray, “The food isn’t agreeing with me. I need to g-”

A hand fists the back of his jumpsuit and yanks him back down, tray hitting the table with enough force to send food flying. “You’re not going anywhere unless it’s with us.”

Junmyeon starts to curl in on himself as he tries to hide the tears that overflow. The man to his right coos, “Don’t get upset. We’re not monsters.”

“We can be very reasonable people after we’re _satisfied_.” Junmyeon chokes on a sob and the hand on his back starts to slide down.

“Are these men bothering you, baby?”

The coyotes scatter as a real predator appears.

The hand on Junmyeon’s back disappears. Two fingers hook in the collar of his jumpsuit and pet at the skin on the back of his neck. Junmyeon startles at the touch and turns his head to see Kris standing over him. His eyes are narrowed in irritation, an unmistakable frown on his lips. Out of the corner of his eye, Junmyeon sees the other men look down at their trays. They act like Junmyeon doesn’t even exist.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been more relieved in his entire life.

Kris keeps his eyes on the men when speaks again, but tugs on Junmyeon’s jumpsuit, “I believe I told you to sit with me during meals, right?” Junmyeon blinks up at Kris. Kris glances down at him for a moment and raises an eyebrow.

Something clicks somewhere in his brain and he nods. “Y-yeah, you did. I’m sorry.”

Kris hums. “Up. Over to Minseok. We’ll discuss this later.” He tugs on Junmyeon’s jumpsuit again and nods over to his own table. Junmyeon nods so hard he’s scared he’ll give himself a concussion and scrambles out of his seat. He trips, foot catching on the bench as he turns, and he nearly falls over. Kris’ hold on his jumpsuit keeps him steady long enough to regain his balance. Junmyeon would’ve fallen onto one of the other men if Kris hadn’t caught him; the man flinches away when Junmyeon gets close like he’s scared of him.

Relief pours over Junmyeon in a wave. The men aren’t scared of him. No one has any reason to be scared of him, not when he spends his time being scared of everyone else, but _everyone_ has reason to be scared of Kris. No one’s willing to piss him off, to encroach on his territory or mess with his things. And, for some reason Junmyeon can’t understand, he is one of Kris’ things.

He knows there’s something very wrong in being considered a _thing_ , but he can’t find it in himself to be upset, not when being a thing means safety. He wonders how long it’ll take him to regret this.

Junmyeon doesn’t have much time to think about it all though. Kris lets go of his collar and guides him across the cafeteria by the small of his back, hand large and warm even through the jumpsuit. He chances a glance over at Kris. His face is blank, eyes scanning the cafeteria like a wolf searching for prey. Junmyeon wonders what that says about him, a rabbit sitting unscathed between the front paws of an apex predator.

Kris steers him to an empty spot at his usual table. Kris' group watch him sit down with shameless interest. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly considering Junmyeon's slowly growing belief that this was planned, he knows most of the men, at least in passing.

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, the man who works in the kitchens, are on his left. He knows Baekhyun and Jongdae from their numerous trips to the library to bother Chanyeol. There are three other men that Junmyeon has seen around often enough for him to recognize their faces, but he has no idea what their names could possibly. Directly across from him is Minseok, who looks so goddamn proud of himself.

He smiles at Junmyeon, eyes sparkling with self-satisfaction. "I told you, Luhan. I _told_ you it would work out." And suddenly Minseok's behavior the past few weeks makes a lot more sense.

The man to Minseok's left sighs and rolls his eyes; he looks at Minseok with unabashed fondness though, reaching over to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear with a soft smile. "I never doubted you, my love," he says, "I just didn't think it would happen so fast."

Junmyeon sits and listens. Mostly, he sits and waits for someone to explain what the fuck is happening. When Kris sits down next to him, he doesn't mention anything about any 'disobedience'. He doesn't say anything at all. Junmyeon waits, watching him out of the corner of his eye as Minseok continues to talk, but Kris doesn't even seem to notice that he's there. He just eats his food and tunes out the rest of the world.

Eventually, Chanyeol joins Minseok's conversation, chattering about things that had happened during rec time that Junmyeon doesn't understand. Kyungsoo talks quietly with the three men at the end of the table who Junmyeon doesn't know; Baekhyun and Jongdae are arguing about something Junmyeon can't hear. The entire table is talking, but Junmyeon just sits and pushes his food around his tray in silence. Kris doesn’t talk to anyone either, but it seems more like his own choice rather than the uncomfortable isolation Junmyeon feels.

“Hurry up.” Junmyeon startles and looks to Kris, who nods at the food on Junmyeon’s tray. “It’s about time for Chanyeol to head to shift, but he’s too nice, so he’ll wait until you’re finished eating. Don’t make him wait.”

“Oh, I-I’m sorry,” he nearly drops his fork in the rush get a bite of barely heated egg into his mouth. His heart thuds in his chest and he feels his face begin to heat up. Kris’ warning about _disobedience_ rings in his ears. It shouldn’t mean anything, Kris had never told him to come sit with him for meals – there was never any order for him _to_ disobey.

A large hand comes into view and covers his own, blocking his spork when he tries to take another bite even though he isn't through chewing the first one. "Don't choke," Chanyeol laughs, "I can wait, it's not a big deal. Besides, we usually get there a little early anyway."

The bite of food goes down like lead, throat constricting uncomfortably as Junmyeon struggles to swallow a mouthful and a half of food at once. He does choke a little. He coughs into his elbow as some food gets stuck. His ears burn. It feels like he can do anything right, like he's in a fucking spaceship where every button is flashing _press me_ and _don't touch_ at the same fucking time. The only conciliation is that nearly everyone else at the table is too busy with their own things to bother looking over at him; he can at least be embarrassed in this kind of relative privacy.

"Jesus, when I said hurry up, I didn't mean try to fucking kill yourself." Junmyeon doesn't want to look and see if Kris looks as disgusted as he sounds.

Then Minseok is scoffing and leveling the man with a look that _screams_ disbelief and irritation. "You told him to hurry up, what the fuck else was he supposed to do?"

"Eat faster."

Minseok rolls his eyes. Junmyeon expects Kris to say or do _something_. He's heard other inmates talk about him in passing - he broke the last leader of A block's femur for challenging him when he first got locked up, scared an inmate who had tried to seduce him so badly that the inmate had _begged_ to switch blocks. And here Minseok is, rolling his eyes and groaning like Kris is particularly petulant toddler. _Something_ should happen, shouldn't it?

Kris just waves a dismissive hand and throws an orange slice at Minseok's face.

Minseok catches the orange slice with a happy hum. "I'll take this as payment."

"For _what_ ," Kris asks.

"For bullying my cellmate. Really, you grab him, broadcast to all of A block that he belongs to you, and then you scare him. Junmyeon's a baby. You can't do that to him." Minseok's voice is playful and he shoots Junmyeon one of the kindest smiles he's seen since he got locked up.

Junmyeon is disoriented. It's like being underwater, only the water is tar and he's stuck in a whirlpool. He can only take each second as it comes without connecting too much of it together to actually understand what it means. Still, he knows kindness when he sees it, and he returns Minseok's grin with a shaky, timid smile of his own.

The man next to Minseok shakes his head and then leans into Minseok's side, mumbling something about Minseok being ridiculous. "What," Minseok takes the man's hand and intertwines their fingers on the tabletop, "Is it ridiculous to look out for him?"

Kris finally sets down his spork, running a hand down his face in obvious exasperation. Junmyeon leans away on instinct. Exasperation is too close a cousin to irritation; he's doing what he can to stay as far away from Kris' anger as possible. "I mean I could've just left him at the table. I didn't _have_ to grab him."

Minseok's smile drops off into a hostile frown. Junmyeon sees Kris put his hands up in surrender, hears them both suck in air to start arguing again.

"I, um, I'm pretty okay with being grabbed. Instead of being left there, pretty okay with being grabbed instead of being left there." Junmyeon swallows and sucks his lower lip into his mouth to chew on, focusing his gaze at a particular spot on the table and refusing to look away. Something like mortification crawls up his spine. He knows he sounded stupid, so stupid he could barely get put a simple sentence together. If he could, he'd take a deep breath and suck the words back in. But he can't. Instead, he has to sit and wait as his words hang in the air, just waiting to be acknowledged.

Kris makes a noise in the back of his throat that sounds a little like a laugh. Minseok does laugh, a short, sharp sound that shatters the awkward tension.

Junmyeon hadn't realize how tense he'd become until he finally relaxed. All the muscles in his back and shoulders ache from being held so tense for so long, but the relief he feels almost drowns out the pain.

"You don't even know _why_ Kris grabbed you. You don't know what he wants." And that's true. Junmyeon has an idea of why Kris came to his rescue, called him _baby_ , and mentioned something about disobedience. He has a very good idea as to what Kris wants if he thinks about what had happened in the showers this morning, but he doesn't _know_.

He shrugs and nibbles on one of the orange segments from his tray, hunger returning in full force as he finally starts to come down from fear-driven adrenaline. "But I know what the other men wanted."

Another orange segment lands on his tray. He looks to Kris, but the man is picking up his spork and starting to eat again, looking completely disinterested in the world around him.

Chanyeol nudges him then, "Finish your oranges and then we gotta go." Junmyeon nods and scarfs the other two pieces down. Chanyeol is already up and moving to put his tray away when Junmyeon starts to stand.

Kris turns and looks him in the eye, so close Junmyeon can see the individual shades of brown along his irises. Junmyeon freezes. Kris hooks two fingers into Junmyeon's collar and tugs him close; Kris' lips brush along the shell of his ear. The sensation makes a shiver run down Junmyeon's spine.

"You eat here now, understand," he whispers. Junmyeon nods dumbly. "Good. No more going to the yard either, too many impulsive idiots hopped up on their testosterone. I'll be in rec room E after shift, if you don't know where that is, just follow Chanyeol."

* * *

 

Chanyeol holds open the door to the rec room for him. They’re both a little out of breath and Chanyeol giggles between pants. Junmyeon doesn’t really see the humor in it, not when they’d had to stay an extra fifteen minutes in the library because an inmate who’d been trying to show off for his friends knocked over two carts of books just before shift ended. The inmate hadn’t even stayed behind to apologize or offer help; Junmyeon had only been able to call after him as he ran out of the library, laughing nervously. The inmate’s friends were quick to follow, giving Junmyeon a wide berth as they scurried away from the mess _they_ had helped create.

The guards didn’t seem to care that Junmyeon and Chanyeol weren’t the ones who made the mess either. They were the inmates in charge of the library when it happened, so it was their responsibility.

Junmyeon had grumbled under his breath then entire time, but Chanyeol laughed. He didn’t seem too bothered. Then again, he wasn’t the one risking Kris’ ire with every minute that passed.

Kris had told Junmyeon to head to rec room E after shift. There was no exact time Junmyeon _had_ to be there by, so a few minutes probably wouldn’t have mattered, but they don’t finish cleaning up the library until fifteen minutes after shift ended. It took them a minute to actually get out of the library, and another three to get to rec room E. So Junmyeon is nearly twenty minutes late.

Rec room E is mostly empty aside from Kris and the rest of his gang. Most don’t react as the door opens, but Minseok, Kyungsoo, and Kris look up from whatever they’re all circled around. Minseok gives a small wave before turning back and Kyungsoo’s mouth twitches up into a smile when he sees Chanyeol, but Kris – Kris is frowning, a deep frown that literally can’t be mistaken for anything but disapproval.

Junmyeon is twenty minutes late. He knows how it looks; it looks like he’d hesitated, or maybe thought about not listening at all. It likely doesn’t even matter that Chanyeol is here either. Kris could think that Chanyeol is late too because he had to convince Junmyeon to come. It looks pretty fucking bad.

“Sorry we’re late,” Chanyeol starts. The door closes behind Junmyeon and he watches as Chanyeol walks over to the group of men to sit half in Kyungsoo’s lap with an easy smile on his face. “Some dumbass thought it’d be a good idea to fuck with the return carts. Knocked two of them over a minute before shift ended and we had to put them all away. Came over as soon as we were done.”

Kris’ face smooths out and he looks back down at whatever he was doing before. And just like, that Junmyeon’s off the hook. Junmyeon owes Chanyeol, he owes him _a lot_.

Kris calls him over with two fingers, and Junmyeon doesn’t hesitate. He lets his feet move him across the room on their own. Kris puts his hand down when he sees Junmyeon move. Junmyeon can see Kris watching him out of the corner of his eye when he comes to a stop a few steps away.

There’s nowhere for him to sit. All the chairs are taken, and they’re all clustered so closely around one table that there’s no space for him to sit on the floor either. It’s obvious that Kris expects him to sit in his lap. Minseok is happily settled in the lap of the man he’d been sitting next to during breakfast and lunch. Luhan, the man had introduced himself during shift when he’d come in to check the lights in the library as part of his work with the prison electrician. Minseok looks perfectly content in Luhan’s lap, as does Chanyeol where he’s mostly sprawled across Kyungsoo’s lap. Junmyeon’s not stupid, he knows what Kris is expecting of him.

He’s just not sure if he can make himself do what Kris is asking.

It’s just too much for him right now. The entire day has been too much, too many things happening to him at once. He’s barely been able to cope – most of his coping has been shoving his feelings down to process that night in the safety of his bunk. Sitting in Kris’ lap is too much, too close to what Junmyeon’s afraid of.

So, Junmyeon sits gingerly on the arm of Kris’ chair, one of those nice, padded armchairs Junmyeon remembers from when he was little and used to watch _Blue’s Clues_. He waits for Kris to say something, to pull him down into his lap. He could, Kris is definitely strong enough. But Kris just leaves him be so he slowly begins to relax.

As he does, he realizes that the reason everyone has huddled around the table is that they’re playing some sort of card game. It’s nothing Junmyeon recognizes, doesn’t seem even _remotely_ related to any game Junmyeon knows. That could just be because of how fast they play it, calling out numbers and throwing cards down faster than Junmyeon can really comprehend. He tries to understand what’s happening, but just as he thinks he’s figured out a rule, it goes up in smoke seconds later.

Junmyeon starts to learn names though. Many of the men yell at Sehun and Zitao at least a few times; it doesn’t take long for him to put the names to the two youngest men’s giggling faces. Then the last man, who smiles sweetly at Junmyeon and leans his head on Jongdae’s shoulder, throws down his last card and Minseok yells out Yixing’s name while Luhan starts spitting angry Chinese.

Minseok keeps looking over at Junmyeon. The first few times, Junmyeon thinks he’s actually looking at Kris; it would make more sense as Kris is the one actually playing the game. But then Minseok starts laughing quietly to himself and shaking his head, gaze shifting between Junmyeon on the arm of the chair and Kris’ empty lap. They make eye contact once and Junmyeon shrugs helplessly. Minseok just waves it off and goes back to playing the game, still looking almost irritatingly satisfied with himself.

It takes a while, but Junmyeon starts to learn what the game is all about – lying. From his seat on the arm of the chair, he can see Kris’ cards. Kris doesn’t really try to hide them, leaning back in his chair and holding his cards out in his lap, barely angled to stop Minseok or Baekhyun from cheating. Junmyeon can see his cards though. He can see when Kris calls out two kings but actually puts down two queens. Junmyeon doesn’t think anything of it at first. He thinks it could’ve just been a mistake; the game is going so fast and they’re all calling out cards and numbers one right after the other that it would make sense for one of them to accidently call out the wrong number or card eventually. So Junmyeon tilts his head to the side in confusion but lets it go.

And then Jongdae says he’s putting down two cards but puts down three.

It’s not obvious. The only reason Junmyeon can see it at all is because he’s sitting a little higher, but he sees Jongdae slip another card into his stack of two all the same. He’s lying. Junmyeon shifts in discomfort.

They’re criminals; lying in a card game is the least of their sins, but something about it just doesn’t sit right with him. Kris lied too and Junmyeon didn’t say anything. This shouldn’t bother him. He’s in fucking prison and has been mostly claimed as Kris’ bitch, Jongdae’s white lie really shouldn’t be bothering him. But it is.

“What is it,” Kris asks and startles Junmyeon out of his thoughts. “You keep squirming. What is it?”

Junmyeon debates saying anything. He could blame it on the arm of the chair, say it’s uncomfortable. That would be lying though, wouldn’t it? All his discomfort at Jongdae’s lie and he’d have to tell a lie of his own to cover it up. There’s also the risk that Kris would take any complaint about the arm of the chair as a reason to tug Junmyeon down into his lap – he can’t handle that right now. So he leans down and says as quietly as he can, “Jongdae’s lying. He put down three cards instead of two.”

Kris smiles for the first time since Junmyeon’s met him. It’s not a very nice smile, arrogant and wicked. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees.

Jongdae watches him warily. He leans back in his own chair and presses his cards close to his chest. “Whatever he told you is bullshit!”

“How many cards did you put down, Dae?” Jongdae’s face turns pink. “That’s what I thought. You’re out!”

Junmyeon hadn’t meant for that to happen. Jongdae swears and throws his cards at Kris, snarling about unfair advantages. He only looks at Junmyeon for a second, but the anger Junmyeon sees in his eyes shakes him to his core. Yixing calls Jongdae a sore loser and tells him to calm down, but Junmyeon’s stomach twists with fear. The last thing he needs now is an enemy, especially one in this little circle of safety.

No one seems to notice or care about his fear though. They’re too busy laughing among themselves or teasing Jongdae for being the first one out. Yixing and Baekhyun seem to be trying to calm him down; Baekhyun winks at Junmyeon and he doesn’t have any fucking clue what it’s supposed to mean.

He looks away from Baekhyun and finds Kris holding Jongdae’s cards out to him. Apparently whoever calls out a liar gets the liar’s cards, which is a good thing for some reason Junmyeon still hasn’t figured out, but here Kris is, holding Jongdae’s cards out to him.

“You’re the one who caught him in the lie,” Kris shoves the cards into Junmyeon’s a little more forcefully. “Take the cards and play.”

“I-I don’t know how to.” Junmyeon looks from the cards to Kris’ face and back again with a dawning sense of horror.

Kris smirks. “You’ll learn.”

Junmyeon doesn’t learn, not fast enough for him to stand any chance at winning the game, at least. He loses horrifically. He only manages to put down cards once. And then Baekhyun calls him out for breaking some rule that Junmyeon didn’t know existed and suddenly all his cards are in Baekhyun’s hands.

Junmyeon is pretty sure it’s for the best. A large part of the game is about lying, something he’s never been able to do without giving himself away. He doesn’t want to catch anyone else in a lie either. Jongdae still shoots him dirty looks across the table – he doesn’t want to piss anyone else off. So, he keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t tell Kris when he notices that Chanyeol seems a little nervous about the one five he just put down.

Apparently, he doesn’t need to tell Kris. He catches movement out of the corner of his eye and turns to see the man looking at him. His eyes scan Junmyeon’s face. There’s a beat of silence. “You’re lying, Yeol.” Chanyeol gasps, sputters, tries to come up with some defense, but when Kris reaches for his cards he hands them over without a fight. Kris grins viciously, teeth glinting in the low light. The game starts up again.

And it keeps happening. Junmyeon will notice someone when is a little uncomfortable, when they let out a strange laugh or if their smile gets little tense, and then Kris will call them out for lying. Junmyeon isn’t sure how he feels about being used as a fucking lie detector; it’s not like he can just tell Kris to stop though.

When Kris wins, thankfully by putting down his last card before Minseok and _not_ by using Junmyeon to catch him in a lie, there’s a few seconds of grumbling and sighing and whining from around the table and t hen Luhan starts dealing out the cards again. He offers one to Junmyeon, but he declines it as politely as he can. It’s better if he just watches and tries to figure out some of the actual rules rather than make himself look like even more of pathetic idiot by losing over and over again.

It’s not like he can focus on the game anyway. He’s too lost in his own thoughts, preoccupied with all the things he doesn’t understand. If he’s honest with himself, he isn’t sure if he even _wants_ to understand most of it.

He’s not stupid, he knows why Kris helped him in the cafeteria. There’s a chance that Minseok really, truly does care about him and told Kris to help, or that Kris is a genuinely good person who didn’t want to see someone innocent get hurt. But it’s a million times more likely that Kris saved him because he’s pretty and Kris wanted to have him for himself. Junmyeon has come to terms with that – he’s too fucking pretty for prison.

Junmyeon just wants to know what Kris is going to want in return. Junmyeon belongs to him now, is essentially relying on him for protection and safety from the other inmates, but he doesn’t know what Kris is going to demand for that protection.

If he’s honest, he’s pretty sure he knows what Kris wants from him. He just doesn’t want to think about it. It’s too much for him to think about right now. Fear is still sitting just under his skin, making him feel like he’s going to explode. He isn’t sure if he’s going to be able to give Kris what he wants. But it’s not like he really has much of choice about it either. His thoughts keep chasing each other around in his brain until he feels hollow and shell-shocked.

He starts to lose himself. His ass hurts because the chair arm isn’t all that comfortable, and he knows, somewhere that his ass is hurting, but he doesn’t feel it. It’s his pain, it’s not happening to him. Nothing here is happening to him. He's just not there.

Rec eventually ends. The men throw their cards and stand when the loudspeaker calls everyone to the cafeteria for dinner. Junmyeon registers it all very distantly. He hears the loudspeaker and watches the card game come to an end, but he only moves because everyone else is moving.

Minseok falls out of step with Luhan on the way to the cafeteria. Junmyeon looks up from the floor and blinks blearily at him. Minseok frowns. "You good?"

Words are hard to put together. He feels things, and he understands what he's feeling, but the words and the thoughts that should come with them slip between his fingers like water. "Yeah," he stammers, "Yeah – I, I'm just..." And Minseok just hums and gives a single nod.

That's all anyone says to him during dinner. He sits between Kris and Chanyeol again, but not even Chanyeol tries to interact with him. Junmyeon doesn't think he'd even be able to respond if Chanyeol does though. The more time he has to sit and focus on food in the tray, the more he comes back to himself, but it's not enough.

They get one hour of rec after dinner instead of the usual two. One of the inmates in plumbing threw a wrench at a guard according to Sehun. That kind of shit usually means no second rec at all, so Junmyeon counts them all lucky. Or it could be unlucky, considering it means Junmyeon has to spend another hour sitting on the arm of Kris’ chair and try to work his way through the fog that’s filling his head like molasses.

Kyungsoo wins two rounds in a row. After the second win, Yixing throws his cards down with a yell and everyone starts shouting. The sudden sound shocks Junmyeon out of his fog; he nearly falls off the chair, but Kris grabs the back of his jumpsuit and holds him steady.

His cheeks burn in uncomfortable embarrassment. No one is paying attention to him – too busy whistling after Chanyeol, who is being pulled out of the room by Kyungsoo. “Pray for Chanyeol,” Minseok cackles. “Kyungsoo’s going for a victory lap.”

“Oh my god,” Baekhyun grabs Jongdae by the shoulder and shakes, “he’s takin’ a victory lap –”

“– On Chanyeol’s ass!” Jongdae and Baekhyun dissolve into giggles as Yixing drops his head into his hands. “Come on, Xing, it’s funny!” Yixing stands up with a sigh and gives a wave goodbye. Jongdae and Baekhyun scramble after him, calling his name and babbling apologies.

Zitao and Sehun leave a few minutes later. Sehun meets Junmyeon’s eyes and offers a small smile before he takes Zitao’s hand and walks out off the rec room, talking quietly with Zitao. Jongin the guard follows after them. But he’s the only guard in the room and inmates aren’t supposed to be left unsupervised in the rec room. Known groups like Kris’ gang are _absolutely_ not supposed to be left unsupervised, but Jongin waves as he leaves like he’s saying goodbye to friends and not convicts in fucking prison.

Junmyeon wonders what he’s not understanding.

A few minutes later, the loudspeaker calls out the end of second rec. It interrupts Luhan and Minseok’s conversation with Kris. They all turn to look at the loudspeaker, and then Minseok and Luhan are up and walking out of the rec room.

Junmyeon goes to follow after them, but Kris’ hand is still fisted in the fabric of his jumpsuit. “Stay, we need to talk.”

Junmyeon’s stomach falls to the floor. “A-alright.”

“Look at me.” Kris lets go of his jumpsuit so he can turn; he looks Kris in the eye and then immediately drops his gaze to Kris’ nose. Kris sighs but doesn’t correct him. Junmyeon thinks that’s a good thing. “You’re not dumb, so I’m not going to insult your intelligence or waste my time by explaining the significance of what happened today. We don’t have to continue this if you don’t want to. It’ll take time for everyone to realize you’re not actually my bitch, likely enough for you to find some other group to stick with for protection. So we don’t _have_ to do this, but if you want to continue, I have expectations.”

“What, uh, are they? The expectations?”

Kris grins. It’s not as awful as Junmyeon expected. It’s not as nasty or cruel, just proud, maybe a little smug. “You sit with me at meals. Sitting by yourself is stupid, makes you look like a target. And obedience, obviously. Your protection is dependent on my reputation – the quicker you obey, the more powerful I look. Don’t question me, don’t hesitate. If I tell you to do something, you do it. Understand?” Junmyeon nods slowly. “Good.”

Quiet settles over them for a few seconds. Junmyeon squirms in discomfort. This can’t be all Kris wants from him. There has to be _more_. He still won’t let himself think about what that more is though. He almost doesn’t want to ask about it, but he has to. He has to know how much time he has to try and cope. He opens his mouth, “What…what do you _want_ from me? L-like, _want_.”

“Not sex,” Kris forces eye contact. “I don’t wanna fuck someone unless they’re gagging for it.”

“Oh.” Junmyeon breathes out and feels the tension flow out too.

Kris hums in agreement. “That doesn’t mean I don’t find you very attractive though. If you ever want me to fuck you, I’d be more than happy to. But I’m not going to do anything you’re not asking for. So, are we continuing this or not?”

“Y-yeah, okay.”

“Great.” Kris stands and gives Junmyeon a soft push off the arm of the chair. He lands on his feet and stares up at Kris, not sure what he should do now. “Go catch up with Minseok and get to your cell before lights out. He’ll bitch at me if I get you in trouble with one of the guards and I don’t feel like dealing with him.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is the second chapter! Things take a lighter turn here! I hope you're enjoying the story so far (and if you're not...I'm not sure what to say).
> 
>  
> 
> As always, a big thank you to [ Aarushi](https://twitter.com/Aarushi_c18) for being the best beta in the world! you really cheered me on through this fic, not sure it would've gotten done without you

Junmyeon adjusts much faster than he expected to. After the first night, brain muddled with residual fear and the sudden shift in his worldview, he woke up and didn’t feel any more uncomfortable than any other morning. And that’s good. It doesn’t sound like it to anyone else but him, but it’s good. There’s no new stress for him to cope with.

Junmyeon walks to the showers that morning and realizes there’s actually _less_ stress. There are no eyes on him now. His skin doesn’t crawl, his stomach doesn’t twist in fear. Junmyeon walks to the shower without being watched and relaxes with every step. He wonders if this is what it’s like to not be afraid all the time. Junmyeon doesn’t really have that much to be afraid of, not in prison, at least. His worst fear, the thing he’d had to accept would happen to him eventually, is gone.

Kris promised. He may not have _promised_ , but he’d made it explicitly clear that he’s got not interest in forcing himself on Junmyeon. And that’s more than enough for Junmyeon.

His body feels lighter. The fear he’d been shouldering for the past few weeks is gone and Junmyeon feels hopeful. He’s got a little bit, just a crumb, of hope that he’ll actually survive his sentence unscathed.

In the bathroom, Kris greets Junmyeon with a nod. His eyes run down Junmyeon’s body, but he turns back to his shower. There’s interest there. Junmyeon can see it in his eyes, the way his pupils dilate, but it’s just interest. He’d made his interest clear last night too. But he won’t touch or take or act on that interest unless Junmyeon asks for it. And Junmyeon has no plans on asking for it. He plans on doing what he needs to do to stay on Kris’ good side – and nothing more.

Kris isn’t evil. He isn’t something less than human like the men who’d cornered him yesterday, but that doesn’t make him a good person. He’s a fucking asshole, wouldn’t be at the top of the food chain if he wasn’t, and that’s never been Junmyeon’s type. But he’s not evil. He won’t take something that’s not being offered, and Junmyeon can accept that.

So Junmyeon adjusts. He can accept and cope with the fact that that Kris wants to stare, _will_ stare as much as he likes. Junmyeon’s been stared at most of his life by people interested in him, in whether he looks just as pretty under his clothes.

Kris is at least offering something in return for his stares.

Junmyeon doesn’t mind the stares in the shower as much now that he knows it means no one else is going to stare. No one is going to _touch_. If Kris’ stare keeps everyone else’s hands off of him, then he can look as much as he likes. If all Junmyeon has to do in return for protection, for going about his day completely unbothered, is sit next to Kris and does as he says, then Junmyeon will do it with fucking _delight_.

He sits with Kris at meals, sits on the arm of his chair during rec time. There’s always a low level of fear – he’s like a rabbit between the paws of a wolf, there’s going to be fear – but it’s not overwhelming compared to the unbearable, choking terror from being surrounded and ambushed like before. What the men wanted before, Junmyeon still can’t really think of what they wanted from him. Days pass and he still can’t make himself admit it. Not that he has to anymore. That isn’t something he has to worry about, not right now.

Kris is an asshole. He barely acknowledges Junmyeon most days unless he’s grabbing him by the back of the jumpsuit to get his attention or tug him around. But he doesn’t expect Junmyeon to give anything he’s not willing to hand over. And there’s more relief in that than anyone else can understand.

It doesn’t mean Junmyeon’s not still scared. Everything about prison makes him anxious and tension, he doesn’t think that will ever stop. But every morning after Junmyeon agrees to be Kris’ is a little brighter than the one before.

He’s adjusting.

* * *

 

Junmyeon hums as he rinses the shampoo out of his hair. Baekhyun found rec room E’s radio on Monday and they’ve had it playing different stations throughout rec time all week. Junmyeon didn’t realize how much he missed music until Baekhyun turned the radio on and the first few notes of a song Junmyeon remembered coming out just before he got arrested played through the speakers.

He’s been humming ever since. Not in his cell or at meals, because he doesn’t want to piss anyone off, but he hums along with every song he recognizes during rec and sings to himself as he puts books away. And in the shower. Junmyeon hums whatever song he wants, as much as he wants, when he’s in the shower. He doesn’t sing like he used to before his life went to shit, but even just humming makes him feel grounded. The water drowns out a lot of the noise – probably why Kris hasn’t said anything about it.

Shampoo runs into his eyes and he squeaks, shoving his face under the spray to try and rinse it out. The water hitting the tile floor is loud in his ears, but Kris’ laugh is unmistakable. The sound bounces off the walls and Junmyeon turns, blinking water out of his still stinging eyes and forcing away a frown when he sees Kris staring at him with the hint of a smile on his lips.

Junmyeon watches and waits for Kris to say something. He never does. They’ve had these moments before, staring at each other in the showers or the rec room, waiting for one of them to break and finally say something. Neither of them ever say anything.

Junmyeon thinks that’s good. It shouldn’t be _bad_ at least. Kris isn’t very talkative when it comes to Junmyeon, and Junmyeon doesn’t really talk to anyone. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with this silence. It’s not uncomfortable in the way the silence with Minseok can be, doesn’t make Junmyeon feel like he’s being crushed under its weight. They just don’t have anything to say to each other.

Eventually, Junmyeon turns back around and grabs his soap. They’ll run out of hot water if they stand there much longer – shitty prison water heater.

Songs float through his head. Nothing more than a few notes or the first line of a chorus. He scrubs a little too roughly at his arms. There’s a song he wants to sing, a new one he’d only heard for the first time last night just before rec ended. It was good, but he can’t remember the melody or the chorus or _anything_. It’s not a big deal – Junmyeon’s in fucking prison, he’s got bigger worries than not being able to remember a song.

He huffs and shuts off the water. He marks it up as a loss; hopefully the song will come on again tonight and he’ll remember it better.

“Junmyeon.” Junmyeon pauses and turns, wrapping his towel around his waist. Kris is turning off his shower as well. He slicks back his hair. Junmyeon doesn’t know why, but he follows the motion of Kris’ hands. Up from the shower handle to his head, pushing his wet hair out of his face. Kris looks more severe like this, even more dangerous, even more like a predator.

Junmyeon’s thankful for the towel. It’s not much, but it gives him a sense of protection. When Kris walks toward him to grab his own towel and clothes. “Yeah?”

“Has anyone been bothering you,” Kris asks. He towels himself off and slips into his jumpsuit, motioning for Junmyeon to do the same. Junmyeon’s cheeks burn. He’s such an idiot, just staring at Kris while he got dressed.

And then Kris does the same. Junmyeon can feel his eyes dropping down the line of his body as he rubs at his hair with the towel. Junmyeon at least kept his eyes on Kris’ face. Junmyeon doesn’t respond until he’s clicking the last button of his jumpsuit, “No. I think most of the other inmates are too scared to be near me.”

Kris’ lips twitch and something like amusement sparkles in his eyes. “Good. They should be.”

They gather up their things, bottle of soap and shampoo getting shoved into pockets and towels tossed into the laundry bin just outside the bathrooms. Junmyeon wonders why Kris asked, but he leaves it alone. It’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.

“If someone does bother you,” Kris starts just before they enter the cafeteria. He pauses, both with his words and his feet, and Junmyeon stops with him. Junmyeon stares up at Kris with barely restrained curiosity. He’s never acted like this before, never squinted off into the middle distance like he’s having to really think of what to say. Junmyeon figured out that Kris is a man of few words pretty early on, but this feels different. “If someone bothers you, tell me immediately. Don’t wait for it to escalate like it did with the men before.”

“Thank you.” Junmyeon smiles softly, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking Kris in the eye.

Kris gives him the idea of a smile, lips dipping for a moment. He starts walking again. “Everyone I take out for bothering you makes me look stronger. The stronger I look, the more protected you are.”

“Yeah,” Junmyeon nods and follows after him. “I’m kinda starting to like that system.” Kris chuckles and Junmyeon’s ears burn.

He’s a rabbit trapped between the paws of a wolf with jaws that could snap his neck and crush his bones. But the wolf prefers the taste of predators over prey – it’s not the worst place to be.

* * *

 

“Hey, let me know if you get the next _Twilight_ book in today?”

Junmyeon looks up from where he’s tucking in the corner of his sheet. Minseok is looking down at him from over the side of the top bunk. “Uh, yeah,” he says, “I think it’s overdue today, so that’s when we’re allowed to tell the guards. Jongin’ll probably go grab it if he knows you’re wanting it. But…um, can I just suggest –”

“No,” Minseok disappears and the mattress creaks with his weight. “The _Twilight_ books are awful and I hate them, but I never got to read them as a kid and I refuse to stop until I’ve suffered my way through them.”

“But you don’t like them.”

“I don’t like a lot of things, cotton tail. Get me the book and I’ll sneak you one of the nice pens out of the administration office.”

Junmyeon hums softly to himself as he thinks. He finishes making his bunk. It’s not as neat as Minseok’s, likely never will be, but Junmyeon’s happy with it. He stands up when he’s done and chews on the inside of his cheek. “Okay,” he says after a moment. “Point-oh-five size please?”

“You got it.” He smiles and bounces on the balls of his feet. The pen isn’t really that big of a deal – the library pens are actually nicer, they smear less. But Junmyeon’s spent the last few weeks under Kris’ protection watching everyone in the gang, learning about them and their dynamics, he’s seen enough to know that Minseok will steamroll anyone who stands in his way without a second thought. He only negotiates with people he really likes.

Junmyeon isn’t sure when he became someone who Minseok really likes, but he’s happy about it.

It happened slowly, so slowly Junmyeon didn’t even notice it was happening, but he and Minseok have grown closer. It started with short conversations about their days before lights-out. Then they started talking about the books they checked out from the library and carrying the conversations over to meals and sometimes, when Minseok decides he’s sick of the card game, they’ll talk during rec.

The more they talked, the more they realized how many interests they have in common. Junmyeon still stumbles over his words and thinks so carefully about what to say so he doesn’t risk pissing Minseok off – Minseok is still _Xiumin_ , still known for having a long list of cellmates that left in a body bag. But not too long after Minseok sat with him on the floor of the rec room and listened intently as he explained what Minseok had missed on _Grey’s Anatomy_ , Junmyeon started to relax.

He starts to relax and starts to feel more like himself. “Okie dokie, artichokie.” Minseok snorts and Junmyeon rubs at his cheeks to try and force down a blush. “I’ll, uh, I’m gonna go.”

“Sounds good. See you at breakfast,” Minseok says with an amused sigh that sounds like he’s trying to hold back laughter. Junmyeon scurries out of the cell as fast as he can, spurred on by embarrassment.

Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Chanyeol are waiting for him at breakfast. He’d brought up the newest Spider-Man movie the night before and apparently flipped a switch that turned all three of them into rabid Marvel fanatics.

“So what’s with the new Spider-Man,” Jongdae starts. He barely manages to get his sentence out before Chanyeol waves a hand in Junmyeon’s face and starts asking question after question about Deadpool.

“What happened in the second movie? Is Vanessa actually Copy Cat? Why is Cable even in the movie?”

Junmyeon blinks, startled. He looks to the others for guidance, but no one comes to his aid. “We’ve all been in here for at least a year and a half,” Baekhyun explains, “you’re the only who’s seen a Marvel movie past _Doctor Strange_.” Baekhyun cracks a smile and his body language shifts into something childish, bright and delighted and sweet. “ _Please_ tell what happened with Marvel since then? Pretty please?” Baekhyun pouts, eyes sparkling. When Jongdae laughs at him, Baekhyun jabs an elbow at his ribs. His face is nothing but mean and dangerous for a second, eyes flat. Then he turns back and everything is cotton candy sweet again.

Junmyeon blinks and wonders if this is what whiplash feels like, overwhelmed, confused, and nervous. Not that it’s much of a change from how Junmyeon feels normally.

He takes a few moments to catch his breath. The mush on his tray that’s supposed to be applesauce is so thick his spoon gets stuck. He abandons it with a quiet sigh and nibbles on a stale piece of bread. “The new Spider-Man is good. I like him the best out of all the others so far. He really feels like a kid, I guess? He seems like a real Spider-Man.”

Jongdae nods along, but his eyes are narrowed in disbelief. “We’ll see about that. I have very high standards about what makes a good Spider-Man.”

“Tobey Maguire was not that good of a Spider-Man, Dae,” Baekhyun groans and rolls his eyes. Yixing hums in agreement and Jongdae scoffs. “He just wasn’t. He was good for what the directors wanted, but he doesn’t fit in with Marvel now.”

“You don’t even know what Marvel now _is_! You’ve been in prison for nearly two years!”

Baekhyun scowls and Junmyeon considers sliding out of his seat and onto the floor to avoid any conflict. “So have you! We got the same fucking sentence, dumbass.” Jongdae growls and leans in with his teeth bared. Chanyeol is scooting closer to Kyungsoo, leaning back – out of Jongdae’s range. Yixing, who is on Jongdae’s other side, moves as far away on the bench as he can.

Baekhyun is the only one who doesn’t lean away. Junmyeon watches with a sick sense of awe as he actually moves closer. He gets right in Jongdae’s face, eyes narrowed and _mean_. His hand closes into a fist on the table.

“Knock it off.” Kris voice shocks them all. Both Jongdae and Baekhyun turn to him with wide eyes. Junmyeon turns as well and gnaws at the inside of his cheek in nervousness as he takes in the look of utter displeasure on Kris’ face.

“Junmyeon started it!”

Junmyeon’s stomach drops. How did this become his fault? He bites down hard on his lower lip to keep his words and emotions locked away. Kris _slams_ a hand down on the table. “What are you? A fucking child? You’re twenty-six years old, not fucking teenagers, act like it and take responsibility for your actions. And it’s a fucking movie. A movie’s not worth going to solitary for, not worth fucking up your relationship for.”

Baekhyun and Jongdae’s faces color pink and they turn away from each other, back to their food. The tension is gone as fast as it came. “Sorry,” Baekhyun whispers. Jongdae replies in kind and Junmyeon watches them scoot closer and closer until they’re pressed together from the shoulders down.

No one mentions Marvel movies or anything else from the outside again, just talking quietly about things in the prison. Baekhyun and Jongdae don’t look up from their food except to talk to Yixing. And Junmyeon sits in silence again; not even Minseok reaches out for a second round of conversation. Junmyeon can’t help but feel guilty and suddenly, unbearably lonely.

Chanyeol looks like he wants to say something when they leave for shift, but he just shrugs and gives Junmyeon a tight smile. He takes the entire cart of books to put away and leaves Junmyeon at the front desk.

Shift passes like molasses. Junmyeon feels every second stretch on in a haze of loneliness. He hadn’t meant to start anything, he just really liked having people want to talk to him. But now no one wants to talk to him and he hates himself for opening his mouth about Marvel in the first place.

Crying is something that has to be saved for his bunk or the showers, so Junmyeon shoves down the simmering sadness and gnaws on the skin around his thumbnail to give himself something else to think about.

“Hey.” Junmyeon jumps in his seat and snaps his head up from where he’d been staring off into the distance. Yixing is standing at the front desk with a soft smile. Junmyeon drops his thumb under the desk when he sees Yixing’s gaze start to drift down to little beads of blood rising to the surface where he’d bitten too hard. Yixing frowns for a moment and his brow furrows.

Junmyeon pretends he didn’t see Yixing look. “How many I help you? Do you have a book you need to check out?”

Yixing shakes his head, “No. I just wanted to let you know no one’s pissed off at you.”

“Wh-what? Why would you want to tell me that?” Junmyeon feels his cheeks start to heat up.

“You’re not exactly discreet when it comes to emotions, Junmyeon. We all knew you were upset at breakfast.”

Junmyeon wants to bite at his other thumb. Humiliation mixes with the sadness sitting like lead in his stomach and makes it hard to breathe, hard to think. He knows that he should be deflecting, pretending that Yixing is wrong and that Junmyeon wasn’t upset at all. “You all stopped talking to me. I think anyone would be upset,” comes out instead.

Yixing smiles and shrugs. “Baekhyun and Jongdae come first.” That _stings_. Of course they would come first – Baekhyun and Jongdae and respected, _loved_ , members of Kris’ gang, Junmyeon’s just a toy. But hearing it still hurts. “Not like that – I mean, yes, exactly like that. But Baekhyun and Jongdae are very particular about apologizing. They’re the reasons you’re upset, so they want to be the ones to make it up to you. If Minseok or Chanyeol had tried to comfort you at all, Baekhyun and Jongdae would’ve just gotten angrier.

“They’ll probably apologize to you at lunch. You accept their apology, everything goes back to normal, and everyone’s happy,” Yixing reaches over the front desk and gently pats Junmyeon on the head. Then he’s gone without a goodbye, strolling out of the library with a simple nod of his head to the guards near the door.

Junmyeon watches him go. When he looks back down at his thumb, he finds that the sadness is gone. It’s not entirely gone, Junmyeon doesn’t think he’ll even not be sad in at least some capacity while he’s in prison, but it’s back down to the usual level. He runs his other thumb over the torn skin and hisses at the pain that’s suddenly much worse than he remembered. “I need a band-aid,” he tells the nearest guard.

As soon as Junmyeon sits down for lunch, Baekhyun and Jongdae reach across the table and pat his hands, arms, head, whatever part is easiest for the hands to touch. “We’re sorry about breakfast,” Baekhyun starts.

“That was shitty of us. I’ve been fighting with Yixing lately and it’s been stressing Baek out too, so we’re just on edge.” Jongdae offers a friendly, sheepish smile and shrugs. “Wasn’t right to get you involved.”

“Thank you,” Junmyeon returns the smile. “It’s okay, really. I’m just – we’re okay?” He knows that he isn’t their friend, isn’t a part of Kris’ group or anything, but he’s attached to whatever this tentative acquaintanceship is.

Baekhyun frowns, he has been frowning since that morning, but his face softens. “Yeah, we’re okay. As long as you’re okay with us, we’re all okay.”

And everything goes back to normal, just as Yixing said it would. Conversations start again, Minseok asks about the _Twilight_ book he’s been waiting for.

“Got turned in yesterday after my shift,” Junmyeon says. “You can come pick it up today.”

Minseok grins and nudges Luhan with his shoulder. “See? This is why I refuse to switch to your cell. I’d have to leave the best cellmate ever behind. _You_ would never help me get through the _Twilight_ books.” Luhan just rolls his eyes and offers Junmyeon a kind, peaceful, reassuring smile. It’s all just a joke. Minseok is joking and they all know that.

Junmyeon keeps his bandaged hand under the table. He’d hidden it in his pocket on the walk to the cafeteria, while he got his food. No one knows about it but Yixing, and Yixing only glances over at him once.

He doesn’t quite know why he hides it. It’s his body and it’s not a real injury. But there’s a sense of shame; he doesn’t want anyone to know about it, doesn’t want to to hear what anyone has to say about it. There’s probably another reason there, hiding underneath everything else, but Junmyeon can’t see it.

At the end of lunch, Kris grabs the back of his jumpsuit before he can stand. Junmyeon’s heart starts beating faster and faster, but no one seems to care, just saying their goodbyes and going back to shift. Chanyeol hovers for a second, chewing on his lower lip as he looks between Junmyeon, the door, and the clock. “I’ll make sure he isn’t late to shift,” Kris promises. “You can go.” Junmyeon would much rather Chanyeol didn’t go, but he doesn’t think he has a choice in the matter.

When Chanyeol is gone, Kris pulls Junmyeon’s hand out from under the table. “Did someone do this?”

Junmyeon shakes his head and feels shame creep up the back of his neck. “N-no. I, um, I did it. I just chewed on the skin around my nail too much. It’s fine.”

“Yixing said you were bleeding.”

“Only a little,” Junmyeon shrugs. “Not that bad.”

Kris hums and nods, but Junmyeon doesn’t think he’s satisfied with that answer. “Don’t let it happen again.” Junmyeon nods. “Good.” Junmyeon feels the moment Kris lets go of his jumpsuit, and he slowly stands up to put his tray away. Before he makes it a full foot away from the table, Kris is calling again, “Junmyeon?”

“Yeah?”

One side of Kris’ mouth tugs up in a smile. “Reserve _Wyrd Sisters_ for me? Ask Chanyeol where to find it and he’ll grab it for you, just hide it in the desk and I’ll grab it at the end of shift.” Junmyeon winces. “What?”

“It’s, uh, already been checked out. Sorry.”

“By who?”

Junmyeon gives Kris a sheepish smile. “Um…me?”

Kris blinks and his smile grows by a hair; it’s the most emotion Junmyeon thinks he’s ever seen on Kris’ face. “Ah,” he says, “interesting. Reserve it for me after you’re done then?” Junmyeon nods quickly, smile slowly transforming into something a little more real. Kris watches him with thinly veiled curiosity. Then his eyes shift away from Junmyeon’s face to somewhere behind him. “Go. Two minutes to shift.”

Junmyeon swears and takes off at a sprint.

* * *

 

The first snow comes in early December. Junmyeon sits in front of one of the few windows overlooking the yard and watches the snow comes down. Outside, Zitao and Sehun are chasing each other around. The ground isn’t cold enough for the snow to stick, but no one seems to care. He can hear their laughter through the glass.

Kyungsoo waves at him from the bleachers near the basketball court. Junmyeon gives a weak wave back. He sniffles and wipes at his runny nose. Minseok’s extra coat is heavy on his shoulders, but he still shivers.

It had just started out as a cold, a runny nose and a slight cough. When it didn’t get better after a few days, Junmyeon wrote it off as just a mild case of the flu. And then Minseok woke him up a few days ago, face lined with concern, and shoved his own pillow under Junmyeon’s head. _You’ve been wheezing for like an hour. Go back to sleep and try not to die._

Junmyeon’s been trying his best to follow Minseok’s orders. It’s harder than he expected, especially once he started running a fever during shift that same day. Chanyeol found him half-conscious at the front desk, breathing shallowly and alternating between shivering and sweating. The guards made him stay for the rest of shift. Even when he started coughing like there was water in his lungs, the guards made him stay. It meant absolutely no work got done because Chanyeol was focused on taking care of Junmyeon and Junmyeon couldn’t do shit, but the guards didn’t really care. All they cared about was making sure the inmates stayed where they were supposed to.

When they got to the rec room, Junmyeon was a little more lucid but still running a fever. Yixing urged him to go to the infirmary and Minseok offered to walk with him. _They’ll at least make sure you’re resting and taking in fluids_. But Junmyeon refused – he’s terrified of needles, and the thought of an IV in his arm made him want to vomit.

And now he’s here, running a bare minimum fever, dealing with a runny nose and cough, and watching everyone play outside from his spot in front of the window. Yixing told him just before he followed Baekhyun and Jongdae outside that he’d be better if he’d gone to the infirmary.

Kris had told Yixing to shut the fuck up and let Junmyeon rest.

“Here,” Kris says, a wad of clean toilet paper in his hand, “blow your nose.”

Junmyeon takes the makeshift tissue with a grateful smile. The last thing he’d expected was Kris to spend time with him when he’s like this. Junmyeon’s not even a little pretty right now, skin white except for the red of his nose and the purple bags under his eyes. But Kris hasn’t pushed him away. They’ve been sitting together during meals and rec time just as they have since this agreement started, and now Kris is here, sitting next to him instead of going out with the rest of his gang. Junmyeon appreciates the company.

Junmyeon expects them to sit in silence, only broken by his own sneezes, coughs, or wheezes. They’ve started talking more since Kris found out they have the same taste in books, but nothing like how Kris talks to Minseok or the rest of his gang.

That’s okay. Junmyeon doesn’t know what he’d say if Kris ever did start really talking to him. The quiet, short exchanges they have about Terry Pratchett, which books they’re both reading, which books they like the best, make Junmyeon nervous, like he’s going to jump out of his own skin at the slightest movement. The silence is nice; it’s about as friendly as a silence can be between two people like them.

Junmyeon is Kris’ prison bitch – there are much worse things to be, like Yubeom’s bitch. Junmyeon’s seen that inmate only a few times, and the resignation on his face whenever Yubeom grabs him by the waist or pulls him to sit in his lap makes Junmyeon that much more grateful to Kris for offering protection for such a cheap price.

It makes Junmyeon even more grateful for the fact that Kris treats him like a person, that Junmyeon’s body is his own.

“Hey.”

Junmyeon blinks and turns to Kris. The winter sun spills through the window and lights up his face in a way that makes Junmyeon’s heart stutter in his chest. Kris is attractive – fucking gorgeous in a dangerous, lethal sort of way, the kind of man Junmyeon would see from across the bar and hope to be noticed by for just that one night. The sunlight doesn’t have the same sickly yellow or too bright harshness the lights inside do though. It makes him look softer, someone Junmyeon would see at a bar and try to approach, try to actually talk to. He still looks dangerous; danger is a part of Kris. But the danger isn’t all that’s there anymore.

Junmyeon wonders if this is what Minseok and the rest of the gang see, an actual person.

“Yeah?”

Kris pulls out a deck of cards from his pocket. Junmyeon stares at them with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, and Kris just grins with one side of his mouth, the point of his canine tooth catching the sunlight. “Wanna finally learn how to play?”

Junmyeon nods, but hesitates to take the cards when Kris holds out half the deck to him, “I thought these had to stay in the rec room?”

“And who’s in there to see that they’re missing? As far as anyone knows, they’re exactly where we left them last night,” Kris says and shoves half of the deck into Junmyeon’s lap so he can shuffle the other. Junmyeon stays frozen in place, the fear of being caught and written up stilling his hands. Kris huffs in annoyance and holds a hand out, “If you don’t want to play, just shuffle the cards and hand them back so I can play solitaire.”

Junmyeon jolts into action. He shuffles the cards the best he can but keeps them for himself. “No, I wanna learn. Teach me?”

Kris’ grin softens into something Junmyeon can’t name. He reaches out and gently pulls the cards out of Junmyeon’s hands. “Already said I would. Turn around and face me.” Junmyeon does. Then he thanks Kris. He isn’t sure why he does. It just seems right. He meets Kris’ eyes and finds himself smiling a real, full smile at what he sees there.

* * *

 

After Junmyeon recovers and winter starts to hit the prison in full force, the entire gang goes outside for rec. It had been Minseok and Baekhyun’s idea, with Minseok convincing Luhan, Zitao, Sehun, and Junmyeon, and Baekhyun dragging Jongdae, Yixing, Chanyeol, and Sehun along for the ride. No one attempted to convince Kyungsoo or Kris as far as Junmyeon is aware, but Kyungsoo is content to do almost anything if it makes Chanyeol happy, and Kris refuses to sit inside by himself.

If Kris had asked, Junmyeon would have stayed inside with him. He could’ve finished teaching Junmyeon the card game or they could’ve just read quietly. But he didn’t, and Junmyeon didn’t feel comfortable enough to offer.

Instead, Junmyeon just watches Kris sit in the grass across the yard by himself, scowl settled firmly on his face.

“He just doesn’t like the cold,” Minseok says. He scoots closer to Junmyeon on the bleachers and tries to siphon off some of Junmyeon’s body heat. “God, why are you so cold too?”

Junmyeon laughs. “It’s cold outside, Min. I think we’re all cold.” Minseok reaches over to slide his freezing fingers under the collar of Junmyeon’s jumpsuit and he squeaks, ducking out range and giggling. “Your hands are so cold! I don’t like it!”

Minseok just smiles mischievously and keeps scooting after him. “Let me warm up my fingers, cotton tail. My hands are cold, what if they fall off?”

“Then they fall off!”

Junmyeon expects the pinch to his side but isn’t fast enough to swat Minseok’s hand away. He doesn’t try to either; Minseok would never seriously try to hurt him. Junmyeon takes Minseok’s hands in his own and breathes on them to try and warm them up. Minseok sighs in contentment and scoots even closer to rest his head on Junmyeon’s shoulder.

Junmyeon wonders when they became so close. He doesn’t remember it happening, only that one day they were curled up together in one of the chairs in the library because the administrator Minseok is supposed to be assist for shift is at a conference and he had the day off.

It’s doesn’t make any fucking sense. Minseok has been connected to the deaths of multiple inmates. He’s an influential member in a known gang. But Junmyeon can’t remember ever having a friend closer than Minseok. And isn’t it just fucking ridiculous that it took going to prison for Junmyeon to finally make a friend?

“Hey, Minseok?” Minseok hums in response. A breeze blows cold air through the thin material of their jumpsuits and they both shiver. Junmyeon looks down at their hands and gnaws at his bottom lip. “How long is your sentence?”

“Still got four or five years left before I have a chance for parole. Why?”

Junmyeon shrugs but feels his stomach twist in discomfort. “Just wondering. I don’t know about what you’ve all done to get put in here, is all.”

“Oh,” Minseok shifts and sits up on his own. Junmyeon lets him pull his hands away and watches as Minseok leans back into a stretch. “I’m not – I wasn’t with them when I got arrested. I got put away about a year ago for robbing banks. They all came in maybe a week before I did and had took over control of A block. My cellmate then knew Luhan from before prison and I…I was a lot like you. Luhan wanted power, I wanted protection, and I was so pathetic that Changmin helped me get settled, connected me with Luhan.”

“Woah,” Junmyeon whispers. Minseok nods. “You never told me that before.”

“Didn’t think it was important. I’m in the gang now, that’s what matters.”

Junmyeon understands that. It’s better to leave any mention of weakness in the past and put up as tough of a front as possible. It’s not something for Junmyeon to poke at or try to pry out of Minseok. He chances one more question though, “And your cellmate? What happened to him?”

Minseok smiles. “He did his time and got released. I get cards from him about every three months or so telling me about his life, updates me on his address so I can visit him when I get out. He was a good dude, told me not to put up with shitty cellmates.” Minseok’s smile turns wicked and Junmyeon remembers that Minseok is still Xiumin. He might be Junmyeon’s best friend, but he’s still had a hand in the murders of multiple men.

Junmyeon wonders if there’s something wrong with him for finding that reassuring. Minseok’s had all his past cellmates killed or killed them himself, but he’s never tried to hurt Junmyeon. He’s grown close to Chanyeol, Sehun, and Yixing too, all people who’ve likely killed, but none of them would ever hurt him.

“Minnie, Myeon, we’re playing ice basketball. Come join us,” Baekhyun calls. Chanyeol waves them over with a big smile, Luhan and Yixing sitting on the grass next to the basketball court and laughing when Chanyeol’s feet nearly slide out from under him on the slick concrete.

Junmyeon heard about ice basketball once. It’s supposedly just basketball played when the ground is covered in ice. Someone always ends up hurt – usually Chanyeol or Sehun. Junmyeon doesn’t understand the appeal, but Minseok is up and jumping off the bleachers with a cheer. Jongin watches it all from his place next to one of the basketball hoops with resignation, reaching out to steady Sehun when he slips and nearly lands in a heap on the ground. Junmyeon winces

“I think I’ll sit out,” he calls back. Chanyeol and Baekhyun whine but shrug and wave him off.

Junmyeon looks back at Kris across the yard. He could easily just stay on the bleachers and watch Jongin, Yixing, and Kyungsoo try to stop everyone else from braining themselves on the concrete. He could just watch the clouds drift across the sky and spend rec inside his own head, alone on the bleachers, while Kris spends rec inside his own head, alone on the grass.

He’s climbing down the bleachers and shuffling across the yard before he even thinks to stop himself. Kris watches him approach with an unreadable expression. Junmyeon thinks most of Kris’ expressions are unreadable. Junmyeon just hopes Kris will say something if he wants him to go away.

He sits next to Kris in the grass and shivers. It had rained that morning, and the cold dew soaks through the seat of his jumpsuit. He doesn’t understand why or how Kris decided to sit here instead of the bleachers.

They sit in silence for a time. It’s nice. Junmyeon watches Jongin rush out onto the basketball court to grab Sehun when he slips trying to pass the ball to Minseok. Junmyeon looks up and sees the bright winter sun. There’s something almost comfortable about silence shared with Kris. Junmyeon doesn’t feel pressured to fill the void with chatter.

Sometimes he wants to though. “C-can I ask you something?” Junmyeon watches Kris look up from the blade of grass he’d been slowly picking apart. “If not, that’s okay. Just wondering,” Junmyeon adds after a beat.

“Depends on the question,” Kris responds as he turns to Junmyeon with one eyebrow raised.

“Why are you in here?” Kris blinks, something flashing across his eyes, and Junmyeon curses himself for being so fucking nosy. He’s lucky Minseok offered an explanation for how he got arrested, he should’ve stopped there. But he’s been wondering about how Kris and everyone else ended up in prison, sheltering the question and letting the curiosity drive him a little mad.

He opens his mouth to apologize. Kris drops the blade of grass. “Organized crime. Thought you knew that already – or guessed, you’re not stupid.” Kris sighs and leans back to rest his weight on his palm, looking up at the sky.

“I…I didn’t want to assume anything.” Junmyeon did assume it though. He knew Kris couldn’t have been the leader of just any gang to have so much power. It had to have been something large, something established and even more dangerous than any of the street gangs that get thrown in prison after a year or two of operation. He tells Kris as much when the man asks if Junmyeon ever thought of him as head of a mafia. “Not a mafia exactly, because you’re not Italian, but something big.”

Kris turns to Junmyeon with a proud smile. “Good. But you’re still curious, right? You’re smart, I saw how you used to watch us all interact to try and understand our dynamics, try to find a spot for yourself. It’s okay if you’re still curious.” So Junmyeon nods, because he is _horribly_ curious. “We got caught on some bullshit charge I could’ve beat, but I would’ve had to sell Yixing, Kyungsoo, and Luhan down the river to do it. And I wasn’t going to. So, my entire circle went down on lighter sentences.”

“Except Jongin.”

Junmyeon covers his mouth, cheeks burning. He’d guessed that Jongin was part of the gang long ago, when he saw him taser an inmate who’d approached Zitao aggressively. He’d never meant to say anything about it though. He thought Kris would get mad, threaten him – if Junmyeon knows the secret, everyone else might too.

Kris just smirks. “Yeah, except Jongin. The police didn’t have anything on him, and the only people who had any concrete information on his involvement were Sehun and Zitao. They would never sell him out, just like he’d never let them go to prison without protection. He really is a correctional officer, just the dirtiest correctional officer alive.”

Junmyeon nods along, not entirely sure why Kris is telling him so much. Everyone in the gang was letting things slip in front of him. Jongdae had told him one night, so drunk off prison wine he couldn’t walk straight, that they’d all pegged him as unendingly loyal.

They were right. He probably has enough information right now to barter for release. He won’t. Not when he owes Kris and Minseok so much. Even if Kris hadn’t literally saved his life by claiming him as his bitch, Junmyeon isn’t sure there would’ve been any part of him left alive if he’d been left to the other inmates.

After a few minutes, Kris sighs. “I know why you’re in here, Junmyeon.”

“Jongin gave you all my file?” Kris nods and Junmyeon thinks he almost sees guilt on Kris’s face. “I thought so. Chanyeol never asked about it, and he’s asked about almost everything else in my life.”

Kris chuckles. Junmyeon joins him for a few seconds. Then silence settles over them. If Kris saw his file, then he saw how Junmyeon refused to budge on his not guilty plea. His lawyer had told him to plead guilty to try and get a lighter sentence. But Junmyeon just couldn’t, not when he hadn’t actually committed the crime. Kris might have seen the record of Junmyeon having a breakdown in court when he was found guilty. His stomach twists.

“I didn’t do it, Kris. I know it doesn’t matter, but I just – I didn’t do it. I’ve committed crimes, yeah, but I didn’t do that one. I really didn’t.”

Junmyeon looks down at the grass and tries to swallow the ball of emotion lodged in his throat. He hasn’t thought about the trial, about being falsely convicted and imprisoned, in a long, long time. He tries not to think about it.

“I believe you.” Kris sounds like he means it. For the first time since Junmyeon was arrested, someone sounds like they actually believe him.

Another cold breeze blows. Junmyeon leans against Kris’ side, fits himself under his arm, and blames it on the cold.

* * *

 

The temperature continues to drop. Soon, it’s too cold for any inmates to going outside and the rec rooms fill up. Even rec room E slowly fills until it’s nearly suffocating. One day, the chairs Kris and everyone else uses are taken up by other inmates and there’s nowhere for any of them to sit.

That day is the day Junmyeon sees Kris’ cell for the first time. Junmyeon and Minseok live closer to the entrance of A block, close to the showers and cafeteria. Kris and the rest of the gang live farther in, far enough that Junmyeon has never even passed by any of their cells. He follows after Chanyeol and tries to remember the way they came; Chanyeol says that Junmyeon will be able to follow Minseok back to their cell when rec is over, but Junmyeon still commits the three broken light fixtures and the cracks in the concrete floor to memory.

“Hey,” Chanyeol pushes the door to Kris and Yixing’s cell the rest of the way open.

“Didn’t lose Junmyeon on the way, did you,” Baekhyun grins from where he’s splayed across what Junmyeon’s assumes is Yixing’s bunk. Junmyeon steps in after Chanyeol and waves, smiling softly. “There he is! “

Junmyeon walks further into the room and looks for somewhere to sit. Chanyeol has already thrown himself into Kyungsoo’s lap, both of them tucked into one corner of the cell. Sehun and Zitao are in the other, arguing with Yixing in stupidly fast Chinese. Jongdae, Yixing, and Baekhyun are in some strange, indistinguishable mass on Yixing’s bunk, and Kris sits alone on his own. Junmyeon opens his mouth to ask about Minseok and Luhan.

“Minseok decided he just wanted somewhere quiet to read.” Kyungsoo points at the wall behind the bunks, “They’re in Luhan’s cell if you want to go hang out there instead.”

“You look tired,” Yixing says with a frown. “You and Chanyeol both.”

“Oh, uh, fight broke out in the library. An inmate knocked over three entire bookshelves and we had to put everything away.” Junmyeon shrugs and feels his cheeks heat up. Yixing looks between Junmyeon and Chanyeol, who is already half-asleep in Kyungsoo’s lap, and his frown deepens. Junmyeon just shrugs again. There’s not much he can do about it now.

He’s tired, so tired he’s not sure he’d be able to stay awake for more than a minute if he got the chance to lie down. The floor of Kris and Yixing’s cell isn’t all that inviting though, and Junmyeon doesn’t like to be in his own cell without Minseok there. So, he rocks on the balls of his feet and tries to pretend that he’s not so tired. From the look on Yixing’s face and the way concern flashes across Jongdae’s eyes, it doesn’t work very well.

Junmyeon catches movement out of the corner of his eye and blinks in shock as Kris waves him over and pats the space on the bunk next to him.

Junmyeon scurries up the ladder without question. “Thank you,” he murmurs. Kris shrugs it off and leans back against the wall. Junmyeon mirrors him and sighs quietly as some of the tension he’d been carrying bleeds away.

His eyes slip shut in seconds. He drifts for a while. He hears conversations ebb and flow around him. Kris complains about the cold and he hums in agreement. Someone, it sounds like Zitao, starts making fun of CO Johnson’s accent when he speaks Chinese. Junmyeon doesn’t know much Chinese, doesn’t understand much of what Zitao means when he starts saying words and sounds in a silly voice, but Yixing, Jongdae, Kris, and Sehun burst into laughter – he laughs along too. The voices meld together until he can’t distinguish any of them apart; he rests.

“You shouldn’t even be here, Hunnie.” Junmyeon shifts at Zitao’s voice, suddenly sharp with something he can’t name.

Junmyeon blinks his eyes open. Sehun looks up at Zitao from his place in his arms and sighs, smile turning sad and tired. “I wasn’t going to leave you in here by yourself. I couldn’t. You’re a part of me. You would’ve done the same thing for me or Jongin.” It sounds like an argument they’ve had a million times before.

Junmyeon watches as Zitao rests his head back against the wall and stares up at the ceiling. He can see the guilt written in the tense line of Zitao’s jaw now. He wonders how many times they’ve been over this, how many times Zitao has had to wrestle with the knowledge that Sehun got himself arrested just so he wouldn’t have to be alone.

Sehun leans up to press a soft kiss to the underside of Zitao’s jaw. It’s so soft and quick that Junmyeon isn’t sure if it happened it all; they must have so much practice in hiding their love, slipping touches when they can.

Junmyeon’s heart aches, but the moment passes as fast as it came, and the conversation shifts to something else.

The voices fade to the background again. Junmyeon fights to stay awake this time. He doesn’t want to miss the little time he gets to feel like a real person. But it’s hard with bone-deep exhaustion tugging him under.

He doesn’t even realize he’s falling asleep, tilting over because his body can’t hold itself up anymore, until his head lands on something warm and firm. He startles awake and rubs at his eyes. Kris is staring down at him. His shoulder shifts under Junmyeon’s head, and Junmyeon feels like he’s going to jump out of his skin, sitting up straight again. Kris catches him by the jumpsuit before he can sit up completely, “You’re just going to fall over again. Lie down.”

Junmyeon’s heart skips a beat. “Oh, oh no, it’s okay,” he stumbles over his words, embarrassment creeping up the back of his neck like fire. “I’m fine, really.”

Kris raises on eyebrow and pulls him down by his jumpsuit anyway. Junmyeon’s head hits Kris’ thigh and he wonders if it’s possible for a heart to explode from overuse. No one is looking over at them, too engaged in their own conversations or naps to care about what Junmyeon is doing. The thought is comforting – no one is looking, seeing him vacillate between nervous excitement and dread.

Kris’ fingers slipping into his hair, playing with the strands that are longer than Junmyeon had ever let them grow before, are somehow infinitely more comforting.

Minseok had mentioned Kris staring at Junmyeon’s hair a lot recently. Junmyeon had just written it off as Minseok being strange, but he thinks he might have been right. Kris fingers are purposeful in how they tuck hair behind Junmyeon’s ear, thumb catching on the shell and brushing against his earlobe. Junmyeon shivers.

And then Kris just combs his fingers through Junmyeon’s hair over and over, a repetitive motion that starts to lull Junmyeon’s eyes shut as his body relaxes at the comfort of finally being able to lie down and _rest_.

He wakes to the sound of the loudspeaker. Junmyeon jerks awake and groans, rubbing at his eyes and turning his face into his pillow. The fabric is warm under his face, firmer than he remembers. His pillow is barely more than a sliver of cotton in a shitty, scratchy fabric case. Junmyeon isn’t sure when that changed, but he isn’t complaining.

Junmyeon blinks his eyes open and whines at the light. It’s never this bright in his bunk. “You’re spoiled on the bottom bunk,” Kris chuckles under his breath and Junmyeon remembers where he is.

He turns over to look up at Kris in horror. Kris isn’t looking back though, too preoccupied with marking his place in his book. Junmyeon sits up and yawns. The quiet exhaustion still sitting in his bones wars with the dawning mortification that he fell asleep with his head in Kris’ lap. He looks out to the rest of the cell to see how many people he’s going to have to put up with making fun of him for it – it’s empty.

“Wh-where did everyone go? The loudspeaker just went off, right?”

Kris nods. Junmyeon watches as he reaches over and sits painfully still as Kris smooths down what must be out of control bedhead. “You fell asleep. They went to Jongdae and Baekhyun’s cell.” Junmyeon starts to ask why they all left just because he fell asleep, but something flashes across Kris’ face and he stops.

His heart thuds in his chest, nerves prickling where Kris’ fingers brush his skin. He knows that it’s not entirely healthy, the feelings that have been slowly growing in Junmyeon’s chest every time Kris does something kind or smiles. Kris isn’t a good person, none of them are; Junmyeon has gleaned enough information to know that Kris and his gang are not good people. But Kris has been good to Junmyeon, and that’s enough.

Kris climbs down the ladder first. When Junmyeon slips, still a little too sleepy to have full control of his body, he feels Kris hand on his back to keep him steady, and that’s enough.

Junmyeon never meant for it to happen. He expressly meant for it _not_ to happen, but he has started to genuinely likes Kris. He likes him enough that he doesn’t think he would be embarrassed about falling asleep in Kris’ lap if they were the only ones who knew about it. He likes him enough to enjoy the way Kris always runs a little hotter, body heat always bleeding through the fabric of their jumpsuits when they’re close.

Junmyeon likes him enough that when Kris goes to let him out of his cell, he turns around, heart racing and palms breaking out in sweat, and pushes himself up on his toes to brush his lips against Kris’ cheek.

Junmyeon likes him enough that he just smiles and leans into it when Kris gasps and angles his head to press their lips together instead.

* * *

 

Kris is like a magnet or a black hole – a _sun_. Junmyeon fell into his orbit and can’t seem to find a way back out, not that he tries. Days pass, turning into weeks, and it’s good; prison doesn’t seem nearly as scary as it used to. Junmyeon is still so much smaller than most of the other inmates, too pretty for his own good, but there’s no fear eating him up from the inside out anymore. Why would there be? All he has to do is lean into Kris and point out the inmate making him uncomfortable to make the problem go away.

The coyotes can circle as much as they like, the rabbit is safely settled between the wolf’s paws and doesn’t plan on moving.

They don’t kiss again after the first time. Junmyeon thinks about that quick, fleeting press of lips some nights as he stares up at the bottom of Minseok’s bunk. If he’s honest with himself, he’ll admit that he thinks about it much more than that. But he thinks about it the _most_ at night. He plays the memory over and over and wonders when it will happen again.

Kris never makes a move to kiss him again though. Junmyeon knows just as well as any other inmate where the surveillance cameras can’t see, corners and corridors hidden from sight. He knows Kris knows about them too. They’ve both seen Zitao or Sehun drag Jongin into one of them on the way to dinner. But Kris has never attempted to pull Junmyeon out of sight, never even hinted kissing is something he would be interested in doing again.

For a few days, Junmyeon wonders if it’s because Kris is actually not as attracted to him as he said. He asked Minseok about it once, but Minseok only rolled his eyes and said that he didn’t understand how two people as smart as a hacker and a gang leader could be so stupid.

It takes Junmyeon longer than it should to realize that Kris is obvious with his affection, just not in ways Junmyeon had expected.

Kris doesn’t pull Junmyeon aside for kisses or hugs. He can’t, not with guards and cameras constantly watching. Instead, Junmyeon starts to notice all the casual touches. Kris brushes their hands together when they’re walking side by side. At meals, Kris sits so close that Junmyeon can feel his body heat even through their jumpsuits.

Kris smiles at him. It’s a gradual development. Junmyeon doesn’t even notice that Kris’ stony expression has slowly disappeared until the middle of a card game when Junmyeon made some stupid joke and turned to see if Kris laughed – all the air rushed out of his lungs at once when he saw Kris’ bright, delighted smile. After that, Junmyeon couldn’t stop seeing that smile. Kris smiles in the shower as Junmyeon sings whatever song is stuck in his head, Kris smiles during meals when Junmyeon sneaks an extra grape off Chanyeol’s tray when the man’s back is turned; Kris smiles _all the time_.

And Junmyeon thinks he might be a little addicted to Kris’ smile. He can’t help but want to see it all the time. He does whatever he can to make Kris’ eyes light up with happiness.

“Listen,” Luhan says one evening during second rec, putting his feet up on the table and knocking over Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s Jenga tower. They both whine in protest, but Luhan waves them off and throws two Jenga blocks across the room for them to fetch. “I’m not saying that Chanyeol isn’t a baby, Yixing.”

“Then what are you saying?” Yixing leans forward with his elbows on his knees.

Junmyeon watches from the arm of Kris’ chair. Only the lower half of his body is actually resting on the chair, his entire upper body leaning against Kris’ shoulder instead. Kris doesn’t seem to mind. He just reads the novel Junmyeon brought him from the library, completely oblivious to whatever argument Luhan and Yixing have been embroiled in since breakfast. Junmyeon has been paying attention since lunch, but he still isn’t quite sure what they’re arguing about since the majority of their arguments are spent in tense silence.

Junmyeon has asked Minseok and Jongdae why they do that, but he’d only gotten a vague answer about how both Luhan and Yixing like to be very, very certain that they are saying exactly what they mean – that they mean what they say.

“What I’m saying is that while Chanyeol is a baby – Kyungsoo can confirm this for us.” Kyungsoo nods with a small smile on his face, running a hand through Chanyeol’s hair and tugging him close by the waist as if to prove his point. Luhan nods in acknowledgment. “See? Chanyeol is a baby, this is a confirmed fact, but the baby of this gang is undoubtedly Junmyeon.”

Junmyeon doesn’t care much about being called a baby. Junmyeon can’t deny that he’s a baby according to the gang’s definition. He’s soft, open, and gentle, he gives in to what Kris wants, what anyone in the gang wants; he’s very much a baby. No, Junmyeon doesn’t even really register that he’s been called a baby.

All he cares about is that Luhan has referred to him as one of the gang. He called Junmyeon the ‘baby of the gang’ – Junmyeon is _part of the gang_. He _belongs_.

For a tense few seconds, Junmyeon worries that Jongin, Zitao, or Yixing will protest Junmyeon’s inclusion. Yixing just nods thoughtfully. Zitao protests the idea that Junmyeon is somehow a bigger baby than Sehun. No one questions Junmyeon’s place in the gang.

Kris looks up from his book and Junmyeon startles at the finger that traces the shape of his smile, but the soaring, overwhelming excitement and joy at being accepted doesn’t dissipate. He hadn’t even realized how badly he wanted to be accepted until it happened, but goddamn he fucking _wanted_ it. “I don’t think you could get out now if you tried,” Kris murmurs so quietly only Junmyeon can hear. Junmyeon thinks that might be a good thing, because he doesn’t want to get out.

He slips down the arm of the chair and has to swallow down a laugh when Kris makes a soft noise of surprise as he settles himself in his lap. It happened so quietly that no one looks up – Junmyeon feels like it was just a natural progression, unremarkable like the changing of the seasons. He’s been in Kris’ orbit for so long that this was bound to happen eventually.

Junmyeon rests his head against Kris’ shoulder and closes his eyes in contentment at the arm that slides between his back and the arm of the chair to hold him closer. He feels safe.

* * *

 

It takes a long time for Junmyeon to feel confident enough to join the card game again. He’s sat through what feels like hundreds of games since he first called out Jongdae’s lie. Kris taught him the rules in the winter, played a few practice games with him. In the past few weeks, Junmyeon has watched more than a few rounds from Kris’ lap with the man whispering tricks and strategies in his ear. He never felt as though he could ask to join in again though. It’s been offered before, Sehun or Luhan looking up from shuffling the cards to ask if he’s being dealt in, but he always refused.

He didn’t want to make a fool of himself again. Even after he was accepted into the gang, even after he and Kris entered in whatever strange relationship they have now, hidden kisses in corridors and the relief that there’s someone watching out for him taking the weight off of Junmyeon’s shoulders, he stayed away.

And so Junmyeon isn’t sure how he managed to end up here in Kris’ lap with a stack of seven cards in his hands. He looks from them to Kris’ face and back again, hopelessly confused. The beginnings of embarrassment crawl up his spine.

“Don’t look so scared,” Minseok laughs and extends a foot to push at Junmyeon’s knee. “You’ll be fine.”

Jongdae grins at him from across the table. It’d be terrifying if not for the way his eyes narrow into happy little slits now. “Payback’s a bitch, Myeon.”

Kris huffs out a laugh at Junmyeon’s back. “You act like you’ll catch him. He’s a better liar than you, Jongdae.” Junmyeon has to stifle his own laugh when Jongdae’s smile drops off his face to make way for a pout. “Am I wrong?” Junmyeon taps gently at the hand resting next to his thigh on the chair in reproach. When he looks over his shoulder, Kris is already watching him with a soft, nearly imperceptible smile on his face.

“Doesn’t matter whether you’re wrong or right, it’s not nice to tease.” Kris snorts; Junmyeon flicks him in the nose for the disrespect and wonders when he got so goddamn comfortable.

Something flashes across Kris’ eyes much too fast for Junmyeon to catch. For a moment, a soft sort of nervousness builds under Junmyeon’s skin, but then Kris pretends to bite at Junmyeon’s fingertips and it disappears. “Play the game and stop worrying about whether I’m nice or not.” Junmyeon smiles but turns to face the table again, content and completely unafraid.

The game starts off fast and only gets faster. Minseok starts with the eight of clubs. It spirals from there. Junmyeon’s grasp on the rules is firm, but the game still goes too quickly for him to keep up with so many players involved. Any chance he sees to put a card down is gone before he can even tell his body to move. Jongdae’s constant taunts from the table don’t help. Jongdae speaks like a bullet train and Junmyeon can barely comprehend him without anything else demanding his attention; trying to balance Jongdae and the card game make his head spin.

Kris takes pity on him a few times, grabbing one of his cards from his hand and throwing it onto the table. “Tune him out,” he murmurs into Junmyeon’s ear. “And relax, it’s just a game.”

“I know. I _know_. It’s just a game. I get it. I just, I don’t know.” Junmyeon sighs and considers handing the rest of his cards to Kris, giving up on the game for good. “I just can’t _focus_ like this.” Kris sighs. Junmyeon shivers as the warm air blows over his ear.

Jongdae sneers. Junmyeon looks up from his cards for a second and catches the mischief in Jongdae’s eyes. The man opens his mouth – Junmyeon doesn’t know what’s going to come out, but he’s fairly sure he’s not going to like it. “Come on, can’t you do anything without him telling you to? Does he have to hold your hand the whole way?”

“Shut the fuck up, Jongdae,” Junmyeon spits. He meets Jongdae’s look of surprise with the best scowl he can manage. He has to force down a smile at the look of utter shock on Jongdae’s face, on everyone’s faces, like none of them ever expected that Junmyeon could be capable of standing up for himself. To be fair, Junmyeon hadn’t thought he was capable either. “Keep running your mouth and I’ll get you disqualified again.”

“Bitch,” Jongdae laughs. Junmyeon grins in return.

He falls into the rhythm of the game. He loses, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he agrees to play in the next round, and the round after that, and the round after that. He isn’t trying to be hyper-aware of every possible move he could make, every possible move in the entire game, he’s simply playing.

Multiple evenings pass in the same fashion. Junmyeon finds that he really fucking loves playing the game that none of them actually know the name of. He doesn’t win. He doesn’t even come close. For the most part, he’s too busy trading weak insults with Jongdae, Zitao, and Chanyeol to actually play. It’s rare for him to stay in for more than a few moves. He tends to end up handing his cards over to Minseok or Yixing when they catch him breaking a rule, but it doesn’t make the game any less fun.

One night, through sheer luck, multiple mistakes from the other men, and absolutely no skill of his own, Junmyeon ends up as one of the last two players. He looks around the table and searches for his final opponent as Jongdae hands the reminder of his hand over in defeat after accidently calling out a jack while putting down a queen. He’s never gotten this close to victory before, and the idea of winning makes a stupid smile spread across his face.

And then he realizes no one sitting in front of him has any cards left. Junmyeon turns in Kris’ lap and freezes at the gleam in his eyes, smile hidden behind his cards.

Junmyeon’s heart sinks and he deflates. He’s been in Kris’ lap the entire time, there is no possible way Kris hasn’t seen his cards. Still, he tucks his remaining three cards against his chest. Kris has five cards left – Junmyeon has that much of an advantage, at least. It doesn’t do anything about the fact that Junmyeon knows he’ll have to lie if he wants to win.

“Your turn, Myeon,” Kris says and nods toward the table. Junmyeon swallows uncomfortably, nodding in return.

He places a seven of clubs down and calls it out. Kris leans forward and calls out an eight of clubs. Junmyeon can’t remember if they’ve reshuffled the deck since Yixing put his eight of clubs down just before he lost. He grumbles quietly and decides not to risk calling out what could be a lie.

“Nine of diamonds.” It’s the truth, and all Junmyeon has left is the king of hearts. If it was a jack, he’d have a chance at using one of the fucking endless loopholes in the rules, but kings can only be put down with their queen. And both he and Kris know it.

Kris puts a card down. “Ten of diamonds.”

He was so close to winning. It doesn’t matter much considering it’s just a stupid fucking prison game; he had never really wanted to win before either, more focused on not making a fool of himself than anything else. Junmyeon had been so infuriatingly close to winning though. He could’ve won if he wasn’t against Kris, who had a front row seat to Junmyeon’s hand the entire game, who he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Junmyeon doesn’t have any of the cards he needs to win.

Junmyeon decides to try anyway. There’s nothing for him to lose regardless. “Jack of hearts.” The rest of the gang look from the card to Kris with obvious excitement. Kris won every round the past two days. Junmyeon doesn’t have the heart to tell them all he’s about to win again.

“There goes my streak,” Kris says instead, tossing the rest of his hand onto the table. The gang breaks into cheers. Baekhyun hurries to shuffle the cards, saying that they need to get in as many games as they can while Kris is having an off day.

Junmyeon just turns around and looks at Kris in absolute confusion. He doesn’t understand why Kris said Junmyeon won. He didn’t win; he lied, and Kris _knew it_. Why didn’t he call Junmyeon out on it? Kris has never once shown mercy in this game, especially not in the final round. Kris meets his gaze with one raised eyebrow and a sweet smirk on his lips. Junmyeon opens his mouth to ask but can’t seem to find the words.

“I – why? King of hearts.” It’s stammered out and a little stupid but it’s enough.

Kris’ smirk softens into a smile as he reaches out to brush Junmyeon’s hair out of his eyes. “Think you might need to ask Sehun to cut your bangs soon, baby. Can’t believe they made you think a jack was a king.” Junmyeon tilts his head to the side, brain whirring and trying to make sense of it all. Kris laughs. Junmyeon’s heart flips at the sound, the sight of Kris smiling so happily, eyes bright in a way Junmyeon isn’t used to. “You played well and deserved to win,” Kris whispers, “just take your prize and be happy about it.”

“Prize?”

A shadow descends over them and Junmyeon looks over his shoulder to see Chanyeol stretching to his full height in front of the security camera.

Long fingers fit under Junmyeon’s chin and pulls his head back around. Junmyeon jerks when Kris’ lips meet his own, but he relaxes into the kiss, fisting the coarse material of Kris’ jumpsuit. If this is what he gets for winning, he’s not going to complain. He’s going to take his prize and he’s going to be pretty fucking happy about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank so much for reading! If you liked it, please leave a kudos and a comment! 
> 
> I know this fic is... a lot? I hope that if you've gotten this far you're really enjoying it! If you noticed that I haven't tagged something I should have tagged in the past two chapters, please PLEASE tell me! Tackling triggering themes in writing is important to some people for handling trauma and working through things that they don't understand, but it's even more important to make sure that people are able to filter those triggering themes out! So...let me know if something in this needed to be tagged!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we have reached the end! This is where the graphic violence warning comes into play, so be aware of that as you go into it! It's truly not that graphic at all, but I like to be careful. If you're very worried about it, check the end notes for an abridged version!
> 
> As always, a big thank you to [ Aarushi](https://twitter.com/Aarushi_c18) for being the best beta in the world! you really cheered me on through this fic, not sure it would've gotten done without you

"Flowers, really," Kris asks as Junmyeon crouches down to pick a dandelion that hasn't lost it's yellow yet. "That's what you like?"

Junmyeon nods. He stands again and spins the flower between his fingers with a smile. The yellow is almost obnoxiously bright but he loves it anyway. He hasn't had the chance to see any sort of flower in a long, long time. "I like it when they're in a garden or a pot the best, but bouquets are nice too. Why? Don't you like flowers?"

Kris shrugs. "Didn't care for them either way. Never had much of a use for them either; the people I tend to associate with are a bit more opulent in their tastes." Junmyeon waits for Kris to continue, watches his mouth twitch as he thinks of what to say. So much time spent together has given Junmyeon the strange, almost unnervingly rare gift of learning Kris. He understands how much of the quiet is out of necessity to seem aloof and how much is a product of Kris being so careful with his words to leave absolutely no room for misinterpretation.

He isn't quite as careful around as Junmyeon as he used to be. Sometimes, he'll trip over a word or stumble through a sentence. Junmyeon doesn't stutter nearly as much as he used to – he can't remember the last time he was scared speechless.

Awkward silences fill with chatter. And when words fail, there's no rush to fill the void with noise. Junmyeon likes that they can just _be_.

"I think I could learn to like flowers though."

Their walk around the prison yard takes them behind the old wooden shed where the gardening equipment used to be, out of range of the security cameras. Junmyeon reaches for Kris' hand just as Kris reaches for his. They meet in the middle, Junmyeon leaning against the side of the shed with a dandelion held in one hand. Junmyeon smiles up at him and his heart skips a beat when Kris returns with one of his own.

Kris reaches for the dandelion. Junmyeon lets it go without a thought and feels his cheeks burn red as the flower is settled behind his ear. "The yellow looks good against your hair," Kris says with a shrug, eyes soft.

Junmyeon thinks it would look better against Kris' hair instead.

He thinks about having their own garden full of different flowers. He thinks about a nice house with a large living room. He thinks of houseplants on the kitchen counter, maybe hanging some plants from the ceiling for Kris to take care of. If Junmyeon is honest with himself, he would admit that he thinks about what life with Kris on the outside would be like. He likes to stare up at Minseok's bunk after lights out and imagine sitting in their home office or kitchen or bedroom and just _being_ together. The conversation is always very vague, but there's a sense of comfort in the silence.

He hasn't said anything to Kris about it yet. Junmyeon isn't sure if he ever will, but it's nice to imagine.

Clouds drift across the sky. Junmyeon pulls Kris to lie down beside him in the grass, hands still clasped together. Kris shuffles them both closer to the shed until they're lying in the shade. Junmyeon squirms closer to Kris. There are no security cameras to record any 'inappropriate' touching and he plans to take advantage of it to the maximum. So, he curls in close to Kris' side and rests his head on his shoulder.

"That one looks like a dog," Junmyeon points up to a cloud as it goes by.

Kris chuckles. "I thought it was a turtle with a hat." Junmyeon doesn't say anything, just giggles quietly and closes his eyes to rest.

But Kris keeps going. He murmurs about the different things he sees in the clouds. Some of them remind him of animals, some of people; Junmyeon opens his eyes to see a cloud that has the same vague shape as the Chinese character for 'home'.

"You really like cloud-watching, huh?"

Junmyeon cranes his head back to look at Kris' face. He frowns at the distant look in his eye and begins to push himself up one arm to see if Kris is alright. Then, Kris smiles, eyes tinged with something soft and sad, and he squeezes Junmyeon's hand with his own. "My parents and I used to lie in the backyard and look at the clouds. It was the only bit of quiet time together they could give me."

Junmyeon doesn't know what to say, but Kris doesn't seem to expect him to say anything. He just goes back to looking at the clouds.

One by one the rest of the gang joins them. Minseok and Luhan are first and they squeeze into the little bit grass by Junmyeon's feet that's still in the shadow. Kyungsoo rests against the shed wall with Chanyeol half in his lap. Jongdae and Baekhyun drag Yixing down into the sunny grass to cuddle. Sehun and Zitao lie apart from each other in the grass. Junmyeon doesn't understand why until Jongin slides into the space between them. And everything feels complete.

"I missed this," Jongin sighs after a long silence. Zitao hums in response and Junmyeon watches Kyungsoo nod out of the corner of his eye. He wonders what they were all like before prison, how often they got together like this and enjoyed each other's company.

Things on the outside are so much different than things in prison. Junmyeon doesn't even know when – _if_ any of the gang will be released. He still wonders what they would all be like together on the outside. Junmyeon isn't sure if he would still have a place here, but he thinks that he could fit if they gave him a chance. He doesn't say that though. There's always the chance that none of them feel the same way; the rejection would break his heart into pieces. He doesn't want to risk it.

Instead, he blinks up at the blue sky, nudges Minseok's shoulder with his foot, and says, "I'm glad I met you. All of you."

There's a soft murmur of agreement that runs through the gang. Minseok reaches up and tugs at the leg of Junmyeon's jumpsuit. Sehun rolls across the grass for a moment to wrap Junmyeon in an awkward hug that makes them both laugh. Chanyeol makes a noise that sounds disturbingly close to a sob and Junmyeon watches Kyungsoo fuss over him with an exasperated smile.

It makes Junmyeon feel warm inside, as if there's a chance he could still have a place here even after they leave the jumpsuits and barbed wire fences behind.

Kris squeezes his hand again and presses his lips to the shell of Junmyeon's ear, "I think you'd like Guangzhou this time of year."

It doesn't mean really anything, but the idea it sparks makes Junmyeon feel so bright, so full of hope, that he thinks he could burst.

"Hey," Jongdae says, "does that cloud look like a chicken on rollerskates to anyone else?" Baekhyun sits straight up with a look of childish glee on his face.

Junmyeon braces himself for whatever's about to come as Kris sighs preemptively.

"Cock on wheels!"

Yixing bursts into laughter and it's infectious, spreading from one person to the other. Kris cover his mouth with his free hand, but Junmyeon can feel his shoulder shake with silent laughter.

"Cock on wheels," Kris sighs, "we're surrounded by idiots, Junmyeon."

"Yeah, but they're our idiots."

Jongdae and Baekhyun try to defend themselves, but everyone else is laughing so loudly that their voices fade into nothingness. And when Yixing coos, "My precious idiots," they settle back into the grass without another sound.

They lie in the grass until the loudspeaker announces the end of first rec and beginning of dinner. Junmyeon startles awake at the sound, rubbing at his eyes and burying his face into Kris’ shoulder to try and ease himself back to sleep. Kris laughs and his shoulder shakes. It jostles Junmyeon completely awake. “Stop,” his whispers, “I’m tired.” He smiles softly as Kris’ fingers tuck a few stray locks of hair behind his ear.

“You can sleep after dinner.” Junmyeon shifts so Kris can stand and then allows himself to be pulled to his feet, eyes still half-closed. He lets out one last yawn and opens his eyes to Kris staring at him. There’s something in his eyes. Junmyeon doesn’t know what it is, but he likes it. “We can go to my cell after dinner, you can sleep there.”

“Yeah?”

Kris nods. “Yeah.”

The sun is dipping towards the horizon as they walk back to prison. Most of the gang is far ahead of them, but Junmyeon drags his feet to get himself just a little more time outside, a few more peaceful moments with Kris. Sehun fell asleep in the grass too, and he and Jongin are slowly wandering across the prison yard. Junmyeon looks back and smiles at the careful, gentle way Jongin guides a still mostly sleeping Sehun around rocks and pits in the ground.

Junmyeon stretches his arms above his head. As he drops his arms back down, he scratches his fingers through his hair and pauses. There’s only hair behind his ears, no smooth stem or rough flower petals. “Kris,” he asks, “do you see the dandelion anywhere?” Junmyeon looks down at the grass around him with a frown when there’s no sign of bright yellow.

“I might have knocked it off when you were waking up.” Junmyeon hums. The dandelion doesn’t matter, he can find another one tomorrow afternoon. There’s a good chance he’ll find one on the walk across the rec yard. But he wants _that_ dandelion for no other reason than the fact that it was his. He looks to Kris with a shy smile. Kris laughs through his nose, “You want to go find it? That’s fine, I’ll walk with you.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll be really fast. If I don’t see it I’ll come right back, just wait for me at the door?” Junmyeon reaches over and squeezes Kris hand before turning and walking back to the shed. He nods at Jongin and Sehun as he passes. They’re moving faster now that Sehun is waking up; he wonders if they’ll be at the door when he’s done looking around.

The shade from the shed is darker now with the sunset approaching. Junmyeon crouches down in the middle of the grass and tries to remember where he and Kris had been laying. There’s no bright spot of yellow, but they’d been so close to the shed, where the shade is the darkest, that he isn’t sure he’ll be able to pick the dandelion out by color. Even if he could, there’s always the chance it fell with the flower in the grass and the green stem sticking out. Junmyeon hums unhappily, tapping his fingers on his knees.

He’s so far in his own head that he doesn’t hear footsteps approaching.

Pain explodes across the back of his head and he goes down with a yelp. The next hit lands on his back. A wash of adrenaline comes, but it makes his muscles lock up with fear. He curls into himself as more blows rain down and cries out with each one. He manages to tuck his head into his arms after a foot catches him in the cheek, but every other part of his body feels like it’s on fire.

There are voices overhead. At first, they’re loud, laughing. Junmyeon has a flash of _“Thought you looked a little lonely_ ,” and his heart races. He can’t form any real thoughts, just fear and pain and terrifying recognition. He screams though; it’s the only thing he can do. “Shut up,” someone hisses. “How is he so _loud_.” Someone kicks him in the stomach and he screams again. “Shut the fuck up or I’ll slit your throat.”

“Junmyeon?”

“ _Shit!_ ”

“Junmyeon!”

Something hits the ground next to him as more voices come from far away. He can hear guards shouting, Jongin’s voice calling out orders for people to move. Rough hands grab Junmyeon by his arms and start to yank him up, but then Jongin’s voice comes again and he’s dropped. “Hey, Kwon, let the inmate go. I saw him, he didn’t throw a punch. Lee, let yours go too.”

“I saw him on top of another inmate.”

“Didn’t throw a punch though, was just getting him off of Kim.”

Then someone fits their hands under Junmyeon’s armpits and lifts. “Look at me, Myeon. Yeah, open your eyes.” Junmyeon blinks his left eye open as the right protests and feels nothing but _relief_. Kris is there, so close their noses could touch. “There you go. Stand up, baby. I’ll lift, just get your legs underneath you. There you go, _perfect_. Come on, up.” Junmyeon’s legs shake when Kris sets him on his feet, but they hold. _Everything_ hurts.

“Kris,” he whispers. Then he coughs, because somehow even just speaking hurts.

Kris just shakes his head. “You were screaming. I could hear you from the door. You got jumped.” Junmyeon bites back a whimper of pain and lists into Kris’ side. “Yeah, I got you. I know it hurts, there were five guys hitting you at once, it’s going to hurt. What hurts the most?”

“I – uh, everything. My whole body hurts so bad.”

Kris sighs. “Shouldn’t have let you go by yourself. They’ve been watching you since you fucking got here. Didn’t think they’d be stupid enough to do something. Do you need me to pick you up? The infirmary isn’t too far once we’re inside, I can carry you.”

Junmyeon shakes his head. He can feel that he’s still being watched even as Kris is helping him back to the prison and he forces himself to keep walking. He feels so fucking weak and pathetic; he _looks_ weak and pathetic. He wants to preserve whatever dignity he has left. For a moment, he thinks that Kris might protest and insist on picking him up, but the man just nods and tries to take as much of Junmyeon’s weight as he can.

Sehun is waiting for them at the door, eyes wide with concern. The closer they get, the wider Sehun’s eyes get. His mouth drops open in shock and Junmyeon wonders just how bad he looks.

The door closes behind them and Kris somehow manages to tuck Junmyeon even tighter against his side. He curls over Junmyeon’s body as much as he possibly can and shields him from view. It’s dangerous to let the other inmates know that Junmyeon actually _matters_ to him, but Kris doesn’t seem to mind. Junmyeon lets himself enjoy the closeness – he doesn’t want to let go. He wants to stay as close to Kris as possible, soak up his presence and attention like a sponge.

“You sure you don’t want me to carry you?”

Junmyeon smiles, “I’m sure.” The smile pulls at his newly busted lip, sharp pain making him wince. Kris’ fingers ghost over the split skin; Junmyeon wonders if he’s just imagining the way they shake. “Just…just stay with me?”

“Yes,” Kris whispers, “of course – I’m not leaving you.” Lips press against his temple for a few long seconds and Junmyeon melts into the touch. “Anything you need, just tell me, I’ll get it.”

“What if it’s you,” Junmyeon lets Kris tug him into the infirmary, doesn’t protest when he’s gently shoved backwards onto a shitty hospital bed because Kris follows him down barely a second later. “What if all I need is you?”

Kris gasps quietly, and smiles. He grabs Junmyeon by the waist and hauls him into his lap, tucking his face against the side of Junmyeon’s neck. “Then you’ve got me, Myeon. If you need me, you’ve fucking got me.” And somehow Junmyeon doesn’t hurt so badly anymore.

* * *

 

Kris stays with him until second rec ends and guards come to escort them to their separate cells. “Wu, with me,” one of the guards calls from the door. Jongin slips in after his and gives Junmyeon a subtle smile, eyes soft as they give him a once over. Junmyeon returns the smile the best he can without pulling at the slowly forming scab on his lip. Pain still pricks at the corners of his mouth but it’s hardly noticeable under the constant aching soreness radiating out from the rest of his body.

“Feeling better, Kim,” Jongin asks as he passes the doctor staring vacantly at the shitty prison-issued computer and grabs Junmyeon’s chart. He glances over it with a hum before looking up. Junmyeon nods and lets himself lean a little further into Kris’ side.

“Wu, let’s go. You shouldn’t have been allowed to stay in the first place.” Junmyeon doesn’t miss the way his eyes drop to where Junmyeon and Kris’ hands are interlocked, the obvious disgust in his eyes.

Junmyeon frowns as Kris growls under his breath, grip on Junmyeon’s hand tightening. Junmyeon squeezes back in some semblance of comfort. “See you tomorrow?”

Kris nods, “Wait for me, I’ll come and get you in the morning.”

“You don’t have to. Officer Kim walks me to the showers every morning.” Even as he says it, Junmyeon can’t shake the warmth bubbling up in his chest. He feels cared for as Kris’ thumb rubs over the back of his hand in the only act of affection they can get away with. He wonders what would happen if they weren’t in prison, if this was a real hospital where he could crawl into Kris’ arms as often as he wanted.

“And now I’ll walk you. Shouldn’t be taking up a guard’s time for something like that.” When Kris pushes up off the hospital bed, Junmyeon clings to his hand for a little longer than he should. “Needy,” Kris teases quietly. But his eyes are soft, face angled so that only Junmyeon can see. So Junmyeon nods shamelessly and watches with a frown as the distance grows and pulls their hands apart. Kris doesn’t look back after that. He follows the guard out of the infirmary and Junmyeon looks to Jongin for some sort of sign as to what’s coming next.

The prison doctor declares him fit to return to his cell after a final test to determine whether he’s been concussed. Jongin scoffs when the final test is just a quick test of his pupil dilation. “All good to go. Officer Kim will show you to your cell,” the man says as he hands a slip of paper to Jongin and waves Junmyeon off the hospital bed. “Come back if you start throwing up or lose your balance.”

Junmyeon nods and hurries to catch up with Jongin, muscles protesting the use. “That doctor’s a joke,” Jongin stops Junmyeon with a hand on his shoulder and grabs him by the chin to turn his head from side to side. “Bet he didn’t even run any tests to check for brain swelling. I saw you take a kick to the back of the head, Junmyeon, you should’ve gone to an actual fucking hospital.”

“I’ll be okay. Can’t say I’ve had worse, but all of you have – and you’re still here.”

Jongin stares blankly back at him. “We had worse, but we also had proper medical care. I’ll see if I can sneak you and Yixing over to the infirmary during shift tomorrow. The doctor takes his lunch break around one-thirty and Chanyeol will take over the library no problem.” Junmyeon doesn’t bother responding. There’s no use arguing with any of them, not unless he can force his way. And even if he did convince Jongin now, there’s no chance Yixing would let him get through tomorrow without a thorough examination. He’s just relieved to be out of infirmary and on his way to his cell. He’s ready to sleep off some of the pain; the hospital bed was somehow worse than his bunk.

Minseok is waiting for him when Jongin drops him off at his cell. Minseok’s face breaks into a smile when the cell door opens and Junmyeon happily stumbles across the cell to flop down next to him on the bottom bunk. “There you are,” Minseok says softly, patting his back and whispering apologies when he presses on one of the multiple bruises forming along Junmyeon’s spine. “Jongin, there was a disturbance in the laundry hallway. Someone pulled a knife on Kyungsoo.”

Junmyeon startles, heart lurching painfully in his chest, and tries to push himself up, “Someone pulled a knife on Kyungsoo? Is he okay? Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Minseok just pushes him back down to the mattress with a hand between his shoulder blades and shushes him with a soft noise.

“Five casualties I’m assuming?” Jongin’s voice is light and playful.

Minseok scoots until his back hits the wall and Junmyeon can see his face, see the private smile on his lips. “Some things just can’t be helped. They went after one of ours, what else did they expect?”

“My thoughts exactly. I’ll take care of it.”

Junmyeon wonders if this the moment that finally makes him a bad person, hearing about five murders and not caring. He decides he doesn’t care what it makes him; he’s in so much pain and he _knows_ there’s a good chance he would’ve died if Kris hadn’t come for him. So he doesn’t give a fuck, just pulls the pillow under his head and tries to rest.

“Just keep an eye on Junmyeon. He probably has a mild concussion so wake him up every few hours and check his pupils.” A small, shiny object lands in Minseok’s lap. Junmyeon wonders when Jongin had managed to steal the prison doctor’s penlight but decides he doesn’t need to know. “I’ll see you two tomorrow, night.”

The cell door slides shut with a slam and Junmyeon blinks up at Minseok, suddenly so tired he can barely keep his eyes open. Minseok stares back at him for a moment and then reaches over to tug the blanket out from underneath them so he can drape it over Junmyeon.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t have to thank me,” Minseok sighs. “You don’t owe me anything.” Junmyeon forces one eye open and frowns at the undeniable sadness in Minseok’s eyes. There’s so much sadness but something like relief peers out from underneath it. Junmyeon opens his mouth to ask – Minseok shakes his head and offers a sad smile. “I think you’re my best friend.”

“Really?” Junmyeon smiles so widely his lip aches. Minseok nods. “I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those before.”

“Me either.” There’s a pause. Minseok tips his head back against the wall as the lights in the cell go out and hide his face from view. Junmyeon wants to reach up and see if the strange, shuddering sounds are sobs, but he lies still and waits for Minseok to speak. When he does, his voice is shaky and thick, “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”

“You need to sleep too, Minseok.”

A hand finds Junmyeon’s own and holds it gently. “I’ll sleep in a little while.” Minseok pulls Junmyeon legs up from where they were dangling off the side of the mattress to rest across his own.

* * *

 

“Kim,” Junmyeon looks up from his book in surprise. One of the few female guards at the prison is standing in front of the library desk, staring down at him with a frown. “You’ve got a visitor.”

“A visitor?” Junmyeon has never had a visitor since he got locked up, not a single person. His state-appointed lawyer gave up on his case long ago and everyone he used to associate with cut ties after his arrest. He’s seen Kris, Luhan, and Kyungsoo get called away for visitors before. Kris called them business partners and the visits never last more than half an hour. Junmyeon had wondered what it would feel like to be called away for a visitor, to have someone come to the prison just to see him.

It’s more confusing than anything else.

The guard nods, “Do I need to repeat myself?” Junmyeon watches as she drums her nails on the half-rotten wooden desk in annoyance. Her entire body is tight with tension that he can’t understand.

He shakes his head and stands, running his hands down the front of his jumpsuit in a weak attempt to smooth out some of the wrinkles in the shitty fabric. Chanyeol comes out from the bookshelves at that moment. He looks between Junmyeon in the guard in obvious confusion but then shrugs and gathers another armful of books to reshelf. There are only thirty minutes left of shift, so Chanyeol won’t be on his own for too long, but guilt makes Junmyeon stomach twist uncomfortably regardless. He promises himself that he’ll take over the the reshelving process tomorrow – give Chanyeol a day to rest at the front desk and read.

Junmyeon follows the guard through the prison. They pass through halls Junmyeon hasn’t seen since he first arrived, the ones that lead from the main office and the lobby, all the nice, welcoming places that are nothing like the actual prison. The grey concrete fades out to the pastel walls and speckled linoleum tile.

The closer they get to the visiting room, the nicer things become. A few fake potted plants appear, some paintings in plain black frames. Junmyeon looks around in awe. He’d forgotten what it’s like to be surrounded by walls and things that aren’t the same dingy grey or boring beige. He didn’t realize how much he missed color until now, but goddamn does he miss color.

The door to the visiting room is a pretty pale yellow. It reminds Junmyeon of early morning sunlight and he smiles softly; the pain from his slowly healing split lip is barely even noticeable anymore. “Arms out to the side, feet apart.” The guard pats him down with clinical disinterest, not even registering when she pats too hard on the rib Yixing said was likely cracked during the attack. “All good to go. Remember physical touch is limited to handshake or hug at the beginning and end of the visit. Control yourself or we will do it for you.”

Junmyeon nods, “Yes, ma’am.”

He opens the door to the visiting room and steps through to see a single man sitting at one of the small tables dotted around the room. The man stands when Junmyeon walks through the door. Junmyeon feels his jaw drop as the man stands and just keeps going up. He has to tilt his head back a bit to look him in the eye – it feels a little like he’s standing in front of Kris back before he really knew him, ball of fear in his gut included.

“Kim Junmyeon,” the man’s face splits into a friendly smile, eyes crinkling in a way that shatters the slowly mounting tension. “I’m Kim Namjoon, it’s lovely to meet you.”

Junmyeon takes his hand when it’s offered and robotically works his way through the handshake, settling in the chair across from Namjoon. He waits for Namjoon to say something, offer some sort of explanation as to why he’s visiting a criminal he’s never met before. He looks like money, more money that Junmyeon could probably even begin to imagine, impeccable suit and hair perfectly styled. There’s no possible reason for him to be here, if he was here to visit Kris or someone important, maybe, but not to visit Junmyeon.

Namjoon just smiles at him from across the table. Junmyeon shifts uncomfortably in his seat and clears his throat. “It’s, uh, it’s nice to meet you too. But – and I don’t mean to be rude – but who are you and why are you here? I don’t know you.”

“No, you don’t, but I know you. I’ve been working your case for a few weeks now – I’m a lawyer, sorry, I should’ve said that earlier. So I’ve been working your case for a little while. Got a tip that the DA’s office fucked up and sent an innocent man to jail, and there’s nothing I love more than fucking with the DA’s office. So I looked over your case again. And I found a very interesting discrepancy in the DA’s files.”

“What was it,” Junmyeon asks, voice pitching up in excitement. “I-I didn’t do it! I _told_ them I was innocent.”

Namjoon smiles and tips his head to the side. “Don’t worry about the nature of the discrepancy, Junmyeon. Just know that that discrepancy meant none of their ‘evidence’ against you meant shit and you should’ve never been convicted. It meant that there’s a good chance a lot of their cases were fucked up too, lots of innocent people convicted of crimes they never committed.

“But I’m going to be honest, I was paid to look at your case. My client was very clear in the fact that _you_ were the only one that needed to be proven innocent in the matter, so I made the DA a deal: they get a judge to revoke your conviction, expunge your records, and arrange your immediate release, and I keep my knowledge of the discrepancy to myself.”

Junmyeon feels the tears well up before he can stop them, running hot down his cheeks. “And so I’m getting out.”

Namjoon nods. “By tomorrow night at the latest. There’s an apartment a few towns over that is ready for you. It’s not much, but it’s what I could get the DA’s office to cough up.”

“Oh my god,” Junmyeon whispers. His voice cracks and he buries his face in his hands. “Kris, what did you _do_? Oh my god, I’m getting out.” Namjoon laughs, loud and surprised. Junmyeon hardly registers it, chest and head full of so many emotions he can’t even begin to process them all.

He’s getting out. He gets to go home, leave prison behind, and live life as a free man. He’s being found _innocent_ , any trace of this fucked up disaster disappearing into thin air. After so long, everyone is going to finally know that he didn’t do it. People are going to _believe_ him. Kris always believed him though. Junmyeon sobs into his hands. He’s so happy, so fucking _overjoyed_ , but it hurts so badly at the same time. Kris isn’t getting out, Minseok isn’t getting out, none of them are – just Junmyeon. Junmyeon’s going to leave them behind; he’ll be alone again.

“Th-thank you, Namjoon, thank you so much. But I’ve got – I’ve got to go.” Junmyeon shoves his chair back from the table. He tries to wipe at all the tears, but they won’t stop falling, body so overwhelmed with emotions that he can’t think, can’t breathe. He doesn’t even stop to see what Namjoon’s reaction is, just runs out of the visiting room as the loudspeaker announces that rec is starting.

* * *

 

Kris is waiting in his cell. He’s on Yixing’s bunk, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. He looks up as the cell door opens and Junmyeon steps in. His smile is bittersweet. It makes Junmyeon want to start crying all over again.

He sniffles instead, crossing the cell in a few steps to stop in front of Kris. He’s so handsome it hurts – Junmyeon is going to miss him _so much_. “Kris,” he starts, but his voice breaks and he has to bite down on his lower lip to stop it from wobbling. And Kris just reaches out to grab Junmyeon around the waist and pull him close, resting his forehead on Junmyeon’s stomach.

For a little while, all they do is breathe. Junmyeon tries to slow his breathing and calm himself down, and Kris seems to just be breathing Junmyeon in, like he’s trying to commit this moment to memory. As though this is the last moment they get.

“Why?” Junmyeon bends to hide his face in Kris’ hair. His heart is a ship in a storm, emotions flooding through him uncontrollably. “Why did you do it?”

Kris squeezes him tighter. Junmyeon almost doesn’t hear it because of how low Kris’ voice drops. His voice is so, so quiet, but steady and even, a heartfelt confession that knocks the wind out of Junmyeon. “Because I would do anything if it was for you.”

Junmyeon hiccups out a sob and just barely stops himself from crying again. Kris didn’t say it, but he didn’t need to. Junmyeon can hear it all the same. He doesn’t know everything about Kris – there are large parts of each other’s lives that they know nothing about, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have to know every single detail of Kris’ life to know what he means at this exact moment. He _knows_ Kris.

“I love you too.”

* * *

 

Junmyeon unlocks the door to his apartment and sighs as he’s hit by the shitty breeze his barely functioning air conditioner produces. It’s still only spring and it’s not all that hot outside, but his job keeps him active, running around the department store on wild goose chases trying to please the customers. It’s a useless exercise, because the customer is _always_ right and _never_ happy, but he needs the money. Namjoon had helped set him up with this apartment, spruced up his resume to make it easier to get a job, but everything after that was up to Junmyeon.

So he worked his ass off running around town to find some sort of job. He handed in his resume anywhere that would take it. Namjoon had suggested that he apply for more computer-related jobs – his record was expunged the day he was released so no one knows about his hacking tendencies; Junmyeon’s still a little wary of anything to do with computers. He hasn’t even touched his own laptop, scared that if he opens it it’ll sound an alarm and get him thrown back in jail.

Namjoon said that was physically and legally impossible, but the fear lingers.

Junmyeon lies down on the carpet of his apartment and immediately realizes it was a mistake. He’s so tired and the floor is just comfortable enough for him to pass out. He’s slept on worse things, like the prison hospital bed when Kris had tried to convince him to rest for just a few minutes after he got jumped.

The bruises from the attack are gone. The memories aren’t. He remembers the blinding fear, but he remembers Kris more. He remembers Kris walking him to the infirmary and staying by his side for as long as he possibly could. He remembers how gentle everyone had been with him after the attack, the quiet goodbyes after Jongin called him out of rec to be released. Kris had walked with him until the very last moment.

In his dreams, he sees Kris watching him from behind that final checkpoint. In his dreams, he runs back and hugs him one last time; he wishes he’d done the same thing in reality.

Loneliness is something Junmyeon is familiar with. He knew how to keep to himself, how to keep himself occupied without anyone to talk to. He had friends, acquaintances, he wasn’t a fucking hermit. He was as okay with being lonely as one could be. Then, Kris, Minseok, and the rest of them came into his life and now he can’t remember how to be lonely. He was constantly surrounded by people who he cared for and who cared about him. He doesn’t know how to come back from that.

An old friend who had abandoned him tried to get in contact not long after he got out. Junmyeon had tried to rebuild the friendship out of pure loneliness, but he can’t get over the fact that he’d just been _abandoned_. They hadn’t believed him, hadn’t been there for him when he needed them.

Kris had, Minseok had. Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, Yixing, Baekhyun, Jongdae, Luhan, Jongin, Zitao, Sehun – he needed them, and they came to his aid. They murdered five people to keep him safe. Kris had believed that Junmyeon was innocent right from the start.

Junmyeon rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, blinking back tears. He misses them all so much.

No one understands why or how he can miss them because they’re _criminals_ ; the old friend had looked so disgusted, asked how Junmyeon could miss a man that made him his prison bitch. But no one else was there when Junmyeon told Kris that he loved him. He was the only who saw the look on Kris’ face, like the clouds had opened up and rained down fucking sunshine and miracles. He’s the one who misses Kris so badly it keeps him up some nights, loneliness a hollow, empty, aching void in his chest, and that’s what matters.

He wonders if they miss him too. He wonders if they think he’s abandoned them because he hasn’t visited them once in the month and a half since he was released. He’s thought about it a lot. It wasn’t something any of them ever discussed, Junmyeon coming to visit, but he’s thought about it nearly every day since his release.

He just hasn’t found the time or courage to actually look up bus routes and go. It feels like there’s a block between the urge to see them all and the worry that they won’t want to see him, the guilt because it’s taken him so long. The longer he waits, the worse it gets.

Junmyeon is a coward. He can’t stand the idea that he’ll show up and be turned away because no one wants to see him. Underneath the fear, he _knows_ none of them would do that to him – he is a part of them and they _never_ turn their backs on the gang. But Junmyeon is a coward that can’t force his way through the fear. Kris would probably be upset if he knew Junmyeon was berating himself over visitation.

He can imagine what Kris would look like standing over him, arms crossed and frown on his face. Junmyeon crawls up onto the couch and he covers himself with a throw blanket, turning on his side so he can stare at the laptop sitting on the coffee table. “Coward,” he whispers. The Kris in his head frowns harder, and Junmyeon can almost hear his voice telling him to stop talking to himself like this.

Junmyeon turns over to face the couch, away from the laptop and his own guilt, and tries to sleep. He thinks about the fact that inmates are allowed two hugs per visit. He wants to hold Kris so badly it hurts.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to force the thoughts away; he begs himself to fall asleep.

It takes five minutes for him to throw himself off the couch and grab the laptop, starting it up and typing in the name of the prison on Google Maps.

A week later, Junmyeon is on a bus to the prison. It’s a normal bus, not like the one that took him to the prison so long ago. He watches the world pass by out the window and pulls at his shirt. He adjusts and readjusts his clothing, tugging at his button-down and making sure his jeans sit just right on his hips. It’s a good thing he’s wearing slip-on sneakers or else he be untying and retying his shoes.

He wants to look nice. He hasn’t seen Kris in nearly two months and part of him wants to show off. He’s _so_ much prettier out of that stupid, ugly jumpsuit. He wants Kris to know it. Maybe he just wants Kris to call him pretty, give him the attention and praise he’s been craving since he was released. All the bruises are gone too, so there’s nothing marring his face. Not that he needed to get dressed up, Kris will give him as much attention as he wants if he asks for it. Kris always thinks he’s pretty.

The bus drops him off about half a mile away from the prison. Junmyeon walks there with his heart fluttering, entire body filled of nervous excitement.

Why did he take so long to do this? The knowledge that he’s going to see Kris, Minseok, all of his friends makes him so happy that the struggles to adjust to life outside of prison fade away. He’s only allowed one visit per day, but if he comes out once a week it’ll only take him a few weeks to see everyone.

He’s bouncing on the soles of his feet when he walks up to the front desk. He can’t stop himself from smiling. “Hello, I’m Kim Junmyeon. I’m here for visiting hours,” he says, voice pitching up in politeness. The nicer he seems, the faster the secretary will help him, and the sooner he gets to see Kris.

“And who are you visiting?”

“Kris Wu.” Junmyeon looks around, hoping he’ll catch a glimpse of Jongin. He usually spends all his shifts with Kris, but there are the occasions that he gets called away to actually do his job. When Junmyeon doesn’t see him, he just shrugs. Likelihood is that Jongin will be the guard to escort Kris to the visitation room and Junmyeon will see him then.

The secretary types at her computer for a moment before frowning. “I’m sorry, but he’s unavailable.”

“O-oh,” Junmyeon stutters. He blinks rapidly, trying to smash down the uncomfortable feeling welling up in his chest. “A-are you sure?” The secretary nods, but her polite smile is gone. She watches him with trepidation. “Is Kim Minseok available?”

It’s alright if he doesn’t see Kris this time. Minseok will let him know that Junmyeon was trying to see him and then they’ll see each other next week. Junmyeon repeats this to himself even as his heart starts to race in a fit of anxiety. Minseok will tell Kris; Junmyeon knows he would.

“No.”

So Junmyeon asks about Chanyeol, Luhan, Jongdae, Yixing, Zitao, Kyungsoo, every single member of the gang. They’re all unavailable. With each rejection, Junmyeon gets a little more desperate and the secretary gets a little more uncomfortable.

Junmyeon just stands at the front desk after the secretary says that Sehun is unavailable. Not a single one of them are available, or maybe they are available and he just isn’t cleared to visit them yet. Some inmates have a list of visitors that are allowed to see them. “Is there anyway I can contact them and ask to be put on their visiting list?”

“None of those inmates have visiting lists. They simply aren’t available. Now, sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I-I…I just wanted to see them today.” Junmyeon can feel the telltale sting of tears behind his eyes. God, he doesn’t want to cry right now. “I’m so-sorry for wasting your time. I’ll go.”

Junmyeon walks to the bus stop with wooden legs, stomach a hollowed pit of self-pity. There’s no _possible_ way that every single one of them were unavailable. They just didn’t want to see him. Maybe he was only part of the gang for a time, his place temporary and unimportant.

He wonders if Kris has already found someone else.

Junmyeon is devastated by the time the bus pulls up. He pushes the fare into the machine through watery eyes and tucks himself into a window seat, curling into himself and shaking with sobs. His tears soak into his shirt. He hates himself for being so excited to see Kris, for thinking that he really meant something to any of them. “Stupid,” he hisses at himself. He’d spent so long the night before trying to pick out which shirt he thought Kris would like best. He’s so fucking stupid.

He doesn’t matter to them. He doesn’t matter to anyone. He is completely and utterly alone.

The tears have stopped by the time he climbs the last flight of stairs up to his apartment. He’s still sniffling, but he feels so numb that the sadness can’t reach him for a little while. It’ll come back later tonight, but he appreciates the reprieve. He stops at the top of the steps and fishes his keys out of his pocket. Tomorrow, he works a twelve-hour shift. Maybe he’ll ask that old friend to get coffee next weekend; he doesn’t really want to see them but it’s better than being alone.

“There you are. I’ve been waiting for hou- Myeon, baby, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

Junmyeon’s head snaps up. He takes in a deep breath and it comes out as shuddering, body-shaking sob. “ _Kris!_ ”

Kris pushes himself away from Junmyeon’s door and jogs down the hallway to him. Junmyeon stumbles a few steps forward and then launches himself into Kris’ arms, crying all over again. He drops his keys and grabs Kris’ shirt with tight fists. Kris’ arms are warm where they wrap around him. He squeezes so tight that it’s a little hard for Junmyeon to breathe; Junmyeon wants him to squeeze harder.

Kris was unavailable because he’s _here_. Right here, in Junmyeon’s arms, waiting outside of Junmyeon’s apartment. “I love you,” Junmyeon whispers over and over. “I missed you so much.”

“I love you too. It’s alright, Junmyeon, I love you too. Jesus fucking Christ, what happened to you today,” Kris’s voice is just as perfect as Junmyeon remembers. It soothes Junmyeon’s nerves and makes him feel so safe. He manages to force out a stuttered version of his trip to the prison, how no one was available for him to see. Kris laughs and Junmyeon smiles through the tears as he feels him press a kiss to his hair. “I’m sorry. They should’ve told you that we’d been released. Got out a few days ago. Took a little bit to settle in and then I came to come get you.”

“You still want me?”

Kris pulls back and tips Junmyeon’s head up, eyes sharp and serious. “I've been thinking about you every second since you walked out of the prison. Of course I still want you – I haven’t wanted anyone _but_ you since I met you. I’m sorry, I should’ve told you I was getting out too. Come on, let’s get you inside.”

Junmyeon picks his keys up off the ground with one hand and holds tight to one of Kris’ with the other. “How did you get out? I thought you all had a lot of time left on your sentences.” He looks back at Kris as the apartment door swings open and smiles at Kris’ wink.

He locks the door behind Kris and then pulls the man through the shitty apartment to the bedroom. He lets himself backwards onto the mattress and tugs Kris with him. There’s nothing sexual about it, not when all Junmyeon does is fit himself against Kris side and soaks up his presence and warmth. “I love you,” he says.

“You love saying that, don’t you?” Junmyeon nods and Kris laughs. “Good. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing it. And I love you too. I love you so much.”

“Say it again?”

“I love you, Junmyeon. And I’ll tell you it as much as you need me to.”

Junmyeon smiles as he snuggles in closer, “You’ll regret saying that, Kris. I’m going to want you say it a thousand times a day.”

Kris sighs, but a hand settles in Junmyeon’s hair to comb through the strands. “Anything for you. God, how’d you fuck me up like this? All I want to do is be with you now.” Junmyeon hums happily. He fails to see a problem with that.

They lie there for a long time. Kris eventually explains the strings he’d been pulling in the background to get Junmyeon released. He’d been searching for the real Kim, J. that had framed Junmyeon for quite a while. He found him a few days before Junmyeon’s attack. It had made Kris realize how unsafe Junmyeon was in prison and spurred him into giving Kim, J. a very simple deal – hack into the government and set up enough errors and discrepancies in Junmyeon’s file for him to be released, be tortured, or be turned into the authorities. It didn’t take a genius to realize which was the best option. Changing a few things in the rest of the gangs’ files was a logical extension, though one that took a bit longer. A few of them were released on time served, a few as completely innocent.

All that mattered was that they were out and that Jongin could finally quit his job as a prison guard.

“He, Zitao, and Sehun have been locked in their room for the past few days. I think they send the least sore one out to gather food once or twice a day, but that’s it,” Kris chuckles.

“Do you all live together,” Junmyeon asks.

Kris nods. He readjusts them both so that he can lean in and give Junmyeon a kiss, rolling them over to press Junmyeon into the mattress. Junmyeon just smiles against Kris’ lips and clings to his shirt as he kisses back. It’s one of the best moments of Junmyeon’s life, soft, sweet, a little sleepy as Junmyeon comes down from all the emotions. Kris eventually leaves Junmyeon’s mouth to trail kisses all over his face instead, giggling when he squirms at the attention.

“Are you attached to this apartment,” Kris asks after he pulls away to let Junmyeon breathe. Junmyeon shakes his head. He couldn’t care less about this apartment, not if this is leading where Junmyeon hopes it’s leading. “Move in with me? I don’t like not seeing you every single day. Did it for nearly two months and I’m over it. There are more than enough spare rooms for you to have one to yourself if you want.”

“But what if I want to stay with you?”

Kris grins. “I’ve already cleared out space for you in my closet. You want me? You got me.”

“I’ve always only wanted you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank so much for reading! If you liked it, please leave a kudos and a comment!
> 
> I know this fic is... a lot? I hope that if you've gotten this far you're really enjoying it! If you noticed that I haven't tagged something I should have tagged in this fic, please PLEASE tell me! Tackling triggering themes in writing is important to some people for handling trauma and working through things that they don't understand, but it's even more important to make sure that people are able to filter those triggering themes out! So...let me know if something in this needed to be tagged!
> 
> SPOILERS: for the graphic violence warning, Junmyeon is jumped by the rival gang from the first chapter and beaten. It is brief and Kris' gang comes to his rescue quickly.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank so much for reading! If you liked it, please leave a kudos and a comment! If you want to talk to me, please come join me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/killmeDO), [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/killmeDO), and [Tumblr!](http://killmedo.tumblr.com)


End file.
